


I'll be the frosting to your cupcake, wench

by janie_tangerine



Series: everything is cupcakes and (mostly) nothing hurts [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Cupcakes, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, a lot of cupcakes really the sheer amount of cupcakes will kill you with sugar, loss of limb (that's just me following canon though), the amount of angst is minimal and only needed for plot purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 10:35:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where Brienne bakes cupcakes for a living and Jaime ends up being her favorite client. (Also: Renly owns the bakery, a whole lot of plot happens and there's a ridiculous amount of cupcakes. Oh, and Robb and Theon are in a folk duo - yes, it had to be mentioned.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be the frosting to your cupcake, wench

**Author's Note:**

> So, this thing has been my pet project for... well. Months. Probably. You don't even want to know how long I've been on this and I probably would have edited it forever if left to my own devices. But since today is Christmas and canon is dark and full of terrors, have some ridiculously huge amount of fluff.
> 
> Obligatory disclaimer: the only thing I own here (other than the plot) is the title and the name of the folk group featured in this thing. The end.
> 
> Also, endless thanks to my lovely friends [queen_raynbow](http://twitter.com/queen_raynbow) and [kannikala](http://twitter.com/kannikala) who have been the most amazing cheerleaders on Twitter when I came up with this thing (and who have indulged me with it rather than convincing me that I was going insane).

Brienne almost never waits tables.

It's not just that she's better at baking than at being nice and courteous to the clients; it's that a face like hers doesn't attract customers.

Fine, Renly had put it a lot more nicely, but Brienne has spent years deciphering the hidden meanings behind politeness, and she hadn't needed it spelled out. To his credit, Renly had seemed kind of embarrassed, but still, that was the day when Brienne understood that her one-sided crush on the bakery's owner would always remain one-sided. (She had felt slightly better when she had realized that Renly kept flirting with Loras, the other employer. Loras is exactly the kind of person you'd like to serve you in a coffee shop - a lovely face, an even lovelier smile, nice manners, charm all around. He's also very male, and it had made the entire thing sting a lot less.)

So that's how it goes most days - she gets to the shop first, early in the morning, and bakes from then until closing hour. Renly will get there a couple hours after her, and he'll make the shop ready for customers, until Loras arrives for last, comes to get the first batch of cupcakes from the kitchen and then they'll be ready to open.

(Brienne likes this job. Loves it, even - baking was something that always came easy to her. It was something to do while spending your afternoons alone during high school when you didn't have track practice or when you weren't in the gym. She was never popular, even if she was left alone because everyone knew she could pack a mean punch if she wished so, and baking had been a past-time like any other. Then she had started bringing cupcakes to school in the last year when they were too many for only two people to eat. And Renly, who had been in most of her classes and had been a long-time harbored, secret crush, had complimented her on this particular cupcake with peach frosting - _peach is my favorite fruit_ , he had said - and that had been the single happiest moment of Brienne's time in high school. He had remembered it years later when he looked her up and told her that he was planning to open a bakery. And she had been struggling job-wise – a degree in medieval literature won't open you many doors, and the crisis was there for everyone – so she had accepted. Maybe hoping that - but no. No point.)

She'll bake at least five or six batches of cupcakes each day, and a couple of pies ready to be served for lunch and to last through the afternoon, and then she'll leave first and leave Loras and Renly to clean up.

That's how it usually goes, except that on this particular day Loras calls in sick - or better, Renly arrives at the shop saying that Loras is stuck at home with some kind of stomach bug and he won't make it.

So Brienne is stuck serving tables at lunchtime, because while the morning is usually calm enough that Renly can handle all the customers, lunchtime is packed. It's mostly people working for Lannister Inc., a huge company that has its main building a couple of blocks from their shops. Brienne thinks that it includes at least a couple of television channels, three or four publishing companies, a football team and who knows what else, but it's not like she's interested in the first place. And it sends customers in, so complaining isn't an issue.

She changes into a clean apron before coming out from the kitchens - she has baked more this morning so that they don't end up without anything to serve - and tries not to mind too much when people notice that instead of the usual, gorgeous waiter they're stuck with her. She also hears someone argue with some friend, in hushed tones, about whether she's a girl or a man, and she ignores it all. She takes the orders as graciously as she can manage and smiles at each customer (no one seems too impressed with it, but her teeth have always been slightly crooked, her first dentist hadn’t managed to fix the problem and by the time she moved on to a better one, it was apparently too late to do anything about it).

Until she sees _him_ for the first time.

The bell on the door rings and a couple gets inside, heading for a table in the corner; she walks quickly towards the both of them. At first sight, she thinks they must be related, if not siblings; they both have the same striking green eyes and their hair is the same shade of golden blonde. Twins, she thinks, and both of them are gorgeous. The woman has long, silky hair, perfectly styled, a couple of thin, perfectly shaped lips and her green business dress does nothing to hide well-proportioned curves. The man is equally striking - regular features, strong jaw, looking smart in a dark gray suit and a red tie (which is not straight, though). The woman doesn't look too impressed with her either.

"Good morning," Brienne says, trying to sound as cheerful as she can. She hates waiting tables. "What can I get you?"

"Are you new?" the woman asks, without much finesse. Brienne tries to keep her face straight.

"Not exactly. I usually don't wait tables, though."

"Huh," the man says. He has a nice voice, Brienne thinks. "Well, it was time a serving wench showed up at some point. Couldn't be Loras all the time, could it?"

Brienne is tempted, so very tempted to punch him in the face, but she takes a breath instead. She has learned to deal with this kind of situation. And at least the way he said it, it sounded like a poor joke rather than an attempt to be cruel.

"Again, what can I get you? If you still need time to choose, I can come back later."

"See," the woman scowls, "the other one would have already _known_ the usual!"

"Cersei, come on," the man interrupts her. "Don't take it out on her."

The woman - Cersei - stares at the man, unblinking and obviously not satisfied. He rolls his eyes and turns towards Brienne.

"Fine, fine. A medium cappuccino for her, one shot of milk only, along with the tuna salad if you have it today."

"We do."

"Good. A black espresso for me, and... I saw you had red velvet cupcakes today?"

"Yes. With vanilla frosting, sprinkled with chocolate and strawberries on top."

"Charming. I'll have one then."

Nothing more, nothing else. Brienne leaves, watches them argue in hushed tones. She goes back to the counter to fix the next five orders or so, and when she gets to theirs, she can't help it.

She asks Renly who those two are and she almost does a double-take learning that they're the sons of the man who owns Lannister enterprises.

"And they're good clients, along with their brother. I know that she's... not that nice to deal with, but try not to mind too much."

Brienne understands the suggestion, but it's not as if it clashes with what she had planned to do. She puts salad and cupcake and coffees on the tray and then brings it over their table along with the check.

"Salad and cappuccino for you," she says, still smiling amiably. Cersei is still looking at her as if she was some kind of horrible failure of evolution, but she isn't the first and won't be the last.

"And espresso and cupcake for you," she tells her brother. "I hope you enjoy, the latter especially. See, I baked it myself."

She can't help feeling a bit vindicated when he raises his eyebrows in surprise, looking down at the cupcake and then up at her, as if he couldn't imagine her large, rough fingers creating the perfectly good cupcake in front of him.

But she has no time to waste, not when there's half of the room to serve still, and after she turns his back on them, she doesn't see them anymore until she goes to retrieve the tray.

There's no tip.

Obviously.

\--

That evening, she goes straight to the gym.

She doesn't aim for professional level boxing, but it's the other thing she liked to do in high school other than baking. Someone told her that she had the right size and she had found it incredibly satisfying to hit the punching bag, maybe imagining that it was someone whose face she couldn't stand. It's also that she has pretty much always fought against men when it was time to move from the punching bag to the ring - she never found a gym where there was some other woman her size training – and it's been _really_ satisfying to see most of them treat her like a normal person after seeing that she could stand up to them and beat them most times.

Sometimes she even goes for a drink with some of them, as a group, and it's sad that it's probably the closest to a social life she'll ever have, but there are worse problems in life.

Anyway, she certainly doesn't expect to run into the Lannister heir while she heads to the ring.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he asks her, and there's a certain satisfaction in seeing him so surprised.

"I could ask you the same question, since I've been coming here for years and I haven't seen you before today."

He scoffs, looking straight at her. He looks so cocky, she'd like to put him down a notch or two.

"The gym I went to has closed and this was the nearest. And I didn't know serving wenches liked to practice boxing at night."

"I didn't know that boxing was limited to _men_. I'm as good as any of you here."

"Really. I'd like to see you try."

She shrugs, looks straight at him again. As if she'll let him have the last word.

"Fine. I'm taking half an hour to warm up. If you want to go up against me then, you only have to ask."

"Half an hour then," he snaps back, almost annoyed. As if right now the one thing he wants is putting her back in her place.

From the looks, he has at least six or seven years on her, and he's definitely well trained - that she can see.

But he's already underestimating her.

As everyone who hasn't fought her first does.

Brienne can't help feeling elated. This evening, she's going to feel _great_ , and if for one second she thinks about what Renly said about the Lannisters being good customers... she doesn't let it stop her.

It's not as if this is work environment, and he started first, anyway.

\--

As she had thought, he underestimates her. She plays on the defensive for a while, dodging all of his attacks until he grows as frustrated as she wants him to be, and the moment he drops his guard for a second, she throws him a right hook that will most likely bruise and last for a couple of days.

His face will look a bit less pretty, but she doesn’t feel guilty about it.

“Lucky shot,” he says after he spits down on the ring. “Even though it wasn’t bad. For a rookie.”

“A rookie?” she asks back, and the moment he tries to attack her she dodges him again and hits his shoulder fair and square.

He looks straight at her again, his eyes suddenly narrowing. And then his lips curl up in a small, excited grin. “Fair enough. I might have underestimated you. What about we stop playing and do this for real?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Then she finds out that he hadn’t been putting effort into it, because now that he doesn’t think that she’ll go down in a second just because she’s a woman, he’s actually _good_. He catches her on the nose once (not as if it’s going to be a problem – she broke it once, it’s never going to look nice at any point) and on her left cheek, and he’s a match for her when drives her into a corner (even if she gets out of that one without going down once, and he looks quite impressed after that.)

In the end, she fakes a punch to the left side of his face and then gets him on the opposite, and when he goes down he doesn’t try to stand up again. They’re both sweaty, and his lower lip is bleeding, and the skin is getting darker on the point where she punched him first, but he doesn’t look too angry when they get off the ring and they’re handled a couple of towels.

“This is the first time I lose in years,” he mumbles under his breath.

“It might teach you not to underestimate your opponent,” Brienne retorts. Revenge tastes as sweet as she had thought it would.

She’s about to go back to the changing room and she turns her back on him, and then –

“Hey, wait a moment.”

She turns back, and he looks… maybe a bit apologetic?

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry,” he starts, and for a moment she thinks that he must be joking. “I’ve been a dick to you, haven’t I?”

“Well, _yes_ ,” Brienne agrees.

“If it consoles you, I’m like that with everyone. That said, you didn’t deserve any of that. And I deserved _this_.” He raises his right hand, touches the now dark red skin on his cheek. “But I’d like a re-match.”

He sounds sincere, no doubt. And well – Brienne knows most people around here already and he’s good, no lying about that. She could use some real exercise.

“I come here every Friday afternoon after closing,” she offers. “Whenever you want, but I don’t go down easily.”

“I saw that. It means I’ll have to try until I put you down, doesn’t it?”

What makes Brienne accept is that he sounds deadly serious. Maybe a bit amused, but he isn’t messing around with her. He obviously thinks that she’s a worthy opponent, and he came around to it relatively quickly – most people dismiss her until the third or fourth time, when they understand that it isn’t only luck.

“Challenge accepted then. I’ll see you on Friday.”

“Why, wouldn’t we see each other before?”

She scoffs, shaking her head. “Loras waits the tables. Today was an emergency. Usually I – I bake. It’s only me in there.”

“Huh. Well, I liked those orange velvet caramel cupcakes that you haven’t made in a while. Just a friendly suggestion.”

Brienne can’t help it – his attitude is leaving her puzzled. He mocks her before, downright dismisses her later, then he’s apologetic and now he’s being friendly, and the last three in less than one hour?

“We’ll see,” she stammers, knowing that she’s blushing – she never liked being outside her comfort zone, and it shows.

“Good to – damn. I don’t even know your name, wench.”

Which is a point. She doesn’t know his, either – only his sister’s. And she should get worked up about the wench thing, but he hadn’t said it as if he was mocking her, so she lets that slip.

“My name is Brienne. Not _wench_. And I don’t know your name either, though I do know your surname.”

“If you don’t know my name then you don’t read gossip magazines.”

“I don’t.”

“I suppose it’s all to your advantage. Well then, I’m Jaime. See you next week, _wench_.”

Then he turns his back on her and heads for the men’s changing room.

A minute later, Brienne takes a cold shower. Maybe she’ll stop feeling as if she’s blushing all over.

\--

She spends frankly too much time during the weekend pondering whether to take that suggestion or not. She doesn’t want to make it seem as if she’s catering to Jaime Lannister’s wishes or anything, but she also realizes that this might seem a trifle paranoid. He was an ass to her, all right, and his sister hadn’t been any nicer, but he did apologize, and he did seem to genuinely like the cupcakes. And she’ll have to see him again for a while if they’re going to the same gym – maybe burying the axe for good wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Then they could be at least civil to each other – why not. It’s not as if she sees that many people, apart from Renly, Loras and her dad, and while it’s not as if she could ever be even a good acquaintance to the son of one of the five richest businessmen in the country, at least it wouldn’t ruin her Friday afternoons.

On Monday morning, she makes it so that among the batch of cupcakes that she sends over to the shop’s front before lunch there’s a good number of the orange velvet ones, with the caramel top.

She spends the next hour thinking that she has been foolish – maybe he won’t even come here for lunch, what does she know about it anyway since she never gets out of the kitchen? And then Loras comes into the back in the midst of lunch time.

“Brienne? Someone asked for you.”

For a moment, she feels completely flabbergasted.

“They did _what_?”

“They asked for you. Or well, the Lannister guy did, the moment after his sister left to go back to work. And he said he wants four of the caramel cupcakes to go.”

Loras hands her a box with a pale rainbow on the top (it’s for the bakery’s name, _Rainbow_ ) and then hurries out of the back.

Brienne shakes herself out of her trance and runs out of the kitchen and towards the counter. She picks four of the caramel cupcakes (and why is she purposefully picking the ones that look best?) before placing them carefully inside the box and sealing it. She locates Jaime Lannister at table eight; she grabs his receipt from Renly and she’s already halfway there before realizing that she has still her dirty apron on and that she hasn’t brushed her hair or washed the flour off her face – it’s not as if she needs to do it while she’s in the midst of preparing the apple pie that is supposed to be ready in three hours.

Well, she hadn’t looked any prettier at the gym, and why does she even fucking care anyway?

“Your cupcakes,” she says, putting the box in front of him. “It’ll be ten pounds.”

“Mm,” he says, opening the box and looking inside it. “My brother will be happy, he always complains that I never bring anything over when he’s too busy for lunch. Ten, you said?”

“Yes.”

And then he hands her thirty.

“This is too much,” she replies, taking just one of the bills.

“The rest is your tip for Friday. All things considered, anyone else wouldn’t have been as nice as you were. And – well, I wanted to – let’s not get into that. See you, wench.”

His lips quirk up for a second, and then he takes the box and leaves. Brienne takes the extra twenty pounds and then puts them in the apron’s pocket.

She doesn’t realize that her hands are shaking until she starts washing them in the kitchens. (She doesn’t like to touch the ingredients directly after she touched money.)

\--

The next day, Renly ends up at home with the same bug that Loras had (Brienne has no doubt about how that happened, but she’s over it enough that she laughs in Loras’s face when he reports the news). Which means that she’s stuck serving tables at lunch time, too.

And, at more or less the same time, both Jaime and Cersei come inside, occupying the same table.

Before getting the orders, Brienne goes to Loras behind the counter. “Loras, uh, the Lannisters, she usually takes always the same thing, doesn’t she?”

“Yep, and if you bring it over without making her wait she’ll leave a bigger tip. Tuna salad and cappuccino with one shot of milk. You can’t go wrong.”

He hands her a tray with both already on it and when Brienne walks up to their table, she feels slightly better than the first time. She doesn’t look as if she has just resurfaced from the kitchen, at least.

“Good morning,” she says, and then she stops dead in her tracks when Cersei narrows her eyes at her tray.

“And what’s over there?”

“Your – last time you said you wished for your usual and Loras figured that you wouldn’t wish to lose time ordering, so –”

“Well, what a pity, I wanted a change today. I suppose you wouldn’t have a chai latte and a chicken salad?” She’s smiling, perfect, pearly teeth showing up in a neat row, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Of course,” Brienne answers, placing the tray on an empty table. She can’t help sounding dejected, and she notices that Cersei knows that, but she won’t let it get to her.

As if it was the first time it happened. She has tougher skin than that. She had years of practice.

She takes her notebook from her pocket. “Chicken salad and chai latte. And what about you?” She turns to Jaime, and for a second he sends her a sympathetic look and it makes her feel slightly better.

“Black espresso. And what would you recommend? I couldn’t choose when I looked at the counter.”

Damn it. _Damn it_. Brienne can feel herself blushing, and Cersei is probably laughing behind her.

“Well, I think – the banana cupcakes.”

“With real fruit in the frosting?”

“Yes. The base is chocolate.”

“I think I’m going to trust you on this one, wench. After all, you’d know. I’ll get the banana cupcake.”

Brienne nods and gets back to the counter. She hands the tray quickly to Loras, and she’s thankful when he doesn’t comment on it. When she goes back to the table, she resist the temptation to slam the salad in front of Cersei and purposefully only tells Jaime to enjoy his lunch.

When she glances behind her, Cersei looks furious.

Brienne doesn’t feel bad about it at all.

When she gets back to the table, there’s a fifty pence tip on Cersei’s side. Brienne sighs – next time Loras is serving tables and she stays behind the counter.

Then she raises the tray and finds a five pounds bill folded under it.

On Jaime’s side.

When she realizes that she’s smiling as she takes it, it’s too late to stop it from happening.

\--

The afternoon keeps on being packed and she manages to get back to the kitchen only enough time to bake enough that they don’t end up without anything to serve.

The doorbell rings as she’s preparing a cappuccino and she grabs the notebook, figuring that she can take the order after bringing this one to the customer.

“Brienne, hey, the guy who just came in at table three is the other Lannister brother. And the easiest to deal with, probably. But still, keep that in mind,” Loras tells her before turning back to the cash register.

Well, good to know that someone that is easy to deal with exists in that family. She brings the order to table four and then turns towards table three.

Well, the third Lannister brother is recognizable – he has the same hair color, indeed, and one of his eyes is the same green as the other two (one is black). She hadn’t imagined that he’d be around four feet tall, and he’s definitely not the same kind of gorgeous as the other two, but it’s not as if she’ll be the one amused because of it.

“Good afternoon,” she tells him, using her best cheerful tone as usual. “What can I get you?”

“Well, well,” he starts, putting down a book that he was reading. “I was told you’re the one that bakes, so why not asking you? But I haven’t eaten lunch and my brother is the one who likes cupcakes. I’ll be old-fashioned and ask you what pie you’d recommend.”

“The lemon meringue one came out quite good, if I can say so.”

“’Course you can say it, you wouldn’t feed me poison. And why not, I haven’t had it in forever. You still have that lemon green tea?”

“We do, yes.”

“Then I’ll take it, too. Oh, and feel free to be abundant with the slice. I’m starving here.”

She gives him a nod and he picks up his book again. Brienne doesn’t waste time looking at it and hurries back behind the counter – this was better than she had thought. He is easier to deal with – at least he hadn’t blinked an eye when she showed up, and it’s more than half of the customers she has talked to can say.

She’s generous when she cuts the pie after making sure that the tea is brewing.

She brings it over and then she doesn’t think about the third Lannister brother anymore until he calls her while she’s about to go back behind the counter.

He’s almost done with the pie.

“Do you think that I could have a slice to go, if there’s any left?”

“Of course. There’s at least a couple.”

“Splendid, then I’ll take the entire thing. Bring me the check along with the box, will you?”

He doesn’t ask it as if she owes it to him. Good.

When she brings over the box and the check, the plate is polished and the teacup is empty.

“There you go. It was three slices’ worth – thirteen pounds. And oh, that’s –” she starts, unable to stop herself when she sees the cover of the book he’s reading, but then she bites her tongue. It isn’t her place to chat with the clients.

“That’s what? I won’t bite you if you tell me,” he replies. He has a nice smile, she thinks (though not as nice as his brother’s, and why did she even think that?).

“Nothing. Just – uh, your book. I read it while getting my degree.” It’s the correspondence between Abelard and Eloise – hardly the latest Stephen King bestseller. “I wrote a couple of papers on it.”

“I only just finished the introduction,” he explains while taking out his wallet. “But it seems interesting. And you have to branch out when you want to learn something, don’t you?”

He hands her four five pounds bills. “Keep the change. Oh, and next Friday, please don’t hit Jaime too hard in the face.”

Brienne feels her face flush. Hot. _Burning_.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing, it’s that the bruise you left him last week lasted for two days and believe me, it made the Sunday family dinner the very definition of awkward.”

“Oh. I’m sorry if –”

He snorts, shakes his head as he gets down from the chair. “Don’t sweat it. He was mostly amused and I was, too, and knowing him he probably deserved it. Actually, I was joking – if next time he won’t be able to hide it with some stubble, it should make for some fun times. Sunday dinners are so _boring_.”

And then he’s leaving along with his box of pie, and Brienne thinks that this one might have left her more out of her depth than any of his siblings could.

\--

That Friday, she can’t help herself.

“I talked to your brother,” she tells Jaime after warming up. They’re waiting for the other two people on the ring to be done.

“You talked to Tyrion? I can’t imagine it going well. For me, at least. What did he tell you?”

“Not to hit you too hard unless I want to embarrass you in front of whoever goes to your Sunday family dinner.”

Jaime snorts at that, shaking his head, and for a moment Brienne can’t help thinking that his hair is really such a lovely shade of blonde.

“Believe me, wench, I couldn’t care less about what the Sunday dinner jury has to say about it. Don’t even try to let me win on purpose.”

Brienne doesn’t even consider it.

She wins and Jaime makes her promise another re-match before telling her that by the way, it’s been ages since that triple chocolate cupcake that was dark at the base, white at the top and sprinkled with milk chocolate over the frosting.

“I’ll consider it,” she tells him.

“You know,” he says, “about the first day. When we left without a tip.”

“Don’t – it’s fine. I barely even remember it.”

“That’s nice to know, but not the point. It was Cersei who insisted to leave without. Excuse her – she was having a bad day. Still, you didn’t deserve that.”

Brienne tells him not to worry and he goes back to the changing room after that.

And Brienne curses herself on Monday morning as she places thirty triple chocolate cupcakes into the oven.

\--

The next two weeks flow so well that at some point Brienne can’t help thinking that something horrible will have to happen sooner than later. It’s mostly that her life has never been exciting when it was good, and all of a sudden she has a regular, valid partner to train with on Friday night. Then she has found herself with extra cash from the tips Jaime and his brother leave for her (apparently Renly was instructed to bring whatever money they left to her directly if she wasn’t waiting tables, and she still can’t wrap her head around it). Which means that she might be able to get her father a nice birthday present this year, since until now she never earned enough spare cash to get him anything too expensive. And it’s nice to have someone actually tell her that she’s good at what she does – it’s not as if she doesn’t know that, but it’s good to hear someone acknowledging it.  
Of course, there are downsides – whenever she ends up crossing paths with Cersei Lannister she earns murderous glares, and she doesn’t like the way her stomach might clench a bit whenever Jaime half-smiles in her direction (she won’t fall into that trap again, not with someone that is even more out of reach than Renly could ever be). But overall, between that and the shop earning so well that Renly is thinking about hiring a new waiter (which would be good for her, since it’d mean avoiding serving tables at all), everything is going great.

She can’t help hoping that it lasts as long as possible. 

Turns out, a bit more than two weeks is how long the strike of good luck was going to last.

\--

It goes down on the third Friday night after she meets Tyrion Lannister. She wins against Jaime (again), she promises him another re-match next week and goes to take a shower. It takes her longer than usual, maybe because today it was crowded and she had to bake more stuff than usual and maybe because Jaime _had_ almost gotten her before. When she’s done, all the other girls in the changing room have left already. She dresses quickly and grabs her bag, running out before the gym closes. It’s dark already, and she’s dead tired, so she figures she won’t stay around waiting for a bus that is usually late half of the time.

And then she hears the screaming from somewhere behind the corner.

_Jaime’s voice._

She throws the bag on the ground and runs in the sound’s direction, along the side of the building and into a small alley (why is there a truck parked in front of it?). There are two men knocked out cold on the ground and two others standing, along with Jaime, who’s lying on the ground with blood covering his face. And he’s screaming because one of the two men has a foot pressing hard over his right hand.

Brienne doesn’t even think about what she does next – both men have their backs to her (and they’re shouting, everyone is, but she doesn’t even hear what they’re saying). She grabs one of them by the shoulder – the one with his foot on Jaime’s hand – and she punches him hard enough that she feels his nose cracking under her hand. The other turns to her and reaches down to his trousers, probably for a gun or a knife, but she kicks him in the knee before he can do anything. The moment he falls down she grabs the collar of his shirt and knocks him out cold, too.

When she’s sure that he’s out of commission, she kneels down next to Jaime and tries to assess the damage.

It’s bad; one of the two men had also put a knife through his hand before stomping on it and now the skin looks almost purple when it isn’t covered in blood. If one of his fingers isn’t broken, she’ll be surprised. There’s blood on his face and in his hair, too, and this isn’t anything that she might patch up on her own. She takes her phone out of her pocket with trembling hands, dialing 999 and telling them to send the police, too; and then she can only wait.

“Jaime…?” she calls, putting her hand on his left wrist – it’s about the only place that seems safe to touch.

He groans, blinks twice, turns her head towards her. “The hell… you’re doin’ here?” he slurs.

“I heard you screaming,” she answers, trying to keep her voice straight.

“… you took down – took down the other two? Should’ve known – you’d have managed all four of ‘em.”

He coughs and spits blood on the ground and Brienne doesn’t know what to do – if he has broken bones she shouldn’t move him, and she doesn’t feel confident enough to do anything.

“Don’t be an idiot. I wouldn’t. Hey, there’s – there’s an ambulance coming. Don’t move.”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted,” he mutters, and when she hears the ambulance coming, she moves her hand away. She doesn’t expect Jaime’s fingers to reach up and grab hers in an iron grip that no man in his condition should be able to pull off.

When two paramedics get there, they grimace when they see him.

“Are you a relative?” one of them asks as the other takes Jaime’s pulse and screams for a stretcher.

“No. I’m – I train at the same gym and I heard the noise when I left. When I got here he had knocked down two of those men. I did the same to the other two.”

The paramedic nods, and finally the stretcher is brought inside the alley. Both paramedics load Jaime onto it and Brienne follows them until she arrives at the ambulance. She doesn’t want to ask questions – probably they can’t know anything yet, and she figures she’ll stay here and wait for the police while they leave for the hospital.

But then Jaime’s hand reaches out again and clutches her wrist. He looks barely conscious, but he doesn’t relent when she tries to move her hand away.

“I suppose you can ride in the ambulance,” one of the paramedics says, and that’s how Brienne finds herself sitting on the side, holding Jaime’s left hand while someone tries to clean the wounds on his right.

At some point his grip becomes lax after they give him a shot of tranquilizers, but Brienne doesn’t pull away until the ambulance gets to the hospital and Jaime is wheeled inside. A paramedic tells her to wait for the police in a small, white room next to the ER. 

A young officer named Jon Snow shows up a short while later and asks her questions, but she can’t tell him anything beyond the fact that she had taken care of those two men and that Jaime had done the same to the first two. It’s not as if they are close friends – she has no idea about why someone would do it. Officer Snow offers brings her a cup of coffee after they’re done and offers to drive her home. For a moment she thinks that she should stay and ask for news about Jaime, but she isn’t a relative and they probably wouldn’t tell her anything the moment they found out who he is. So she accepts the offer. She thanks the young officer for the ride and tells him that he can drop by for a free cupcake anytime – she knows that he didn’t have to do it, especially if he’s still technically on duty. He gives her a small smile and tells her that he might at some point soon.

Inside, she takes a long, hot shower, washing away dried blood from her fingers, and she goes to bed hoping that on Monday she’ll find out that everything is fine.

\--

On Monday, she doesn’t find out a thing. The news only report an altercation between the heir to the Lannister company and criminals that apparently belong to some kind of gang, but there’s nothing more specific. No one mentions her.

On Tuesday, Renly tells her that someone asked for her at the counter. It’s officer Jon Snow, who asks her if she has a minute to talk. Brienne was about to have a small break, so she tells him to pick a table and wait there. She takes off her apron and brings him a cup of cappuccino and a pistachio cupcake, telling him that it’s on the house as she had promised before he can offer to pay for them.

Admittedly, she’s very satisfied when he seems to appreciate the cupcake the moment he takes a bite.

“So, I wanted to tell you a couple of things – I figured you’d want to know, since if it wasn’t for you our friend would be in much worse conditions. His father has made clear that he doesn’t want details divulged, so this is entirely off the record.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Brienne tells him as he takes another bite from the cupcake. “And thank you for doing it in the first place. I know it’s not exactly proper.”

“Yes, but I think it’s bullshit that they wouldn’t clue you in. Anyway, that looks like a kidnapping attempt – probably they were hoping to get a high ransom. They were all from the same gang and apparently they had sent four of them because they knew that he’d fight back. It was his luck that you heard him. That said, he isn’t going to get out of there anytime soon.”

“Oh. What – how is he?”

“Well, he had a few cracked ribs and his face is a huge bruise, but that’s not the point. The point is that they – they put a hole in his hand, pretty much, after breaking all his finger bones, and by the time he had it treated, it was infected already. Last I heard, they were talking about amputation, but maybe they won’t need to. Sorry, they didn’t tell me anything else.”

“I – I see,” Brienne whispers. She hopes they can salvage it – from what she remembers, Jaime’s right-handed, and she wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll keep it to myself.”

Jon Snow nods at her before finishing his coffee, and then he says he’ll have a piece of apple pie to bring his patrol partner this evening. Then he looks at the counter and asks Brienne whether she’d be up for baking something for a surprise party he’s organizing for his little sister, and Brienne leaves him her number – a bit more money can’t hurt.

When he’s gone, she goes back to the kitchen.

She makes another batch of the orange velvet caramel cupcakes.

\--

The next day, she’s tempted to go to the Lannister Inc. offices and ask someone if they can have a box of cupcakes delivered at the hospital, but the idea dies after two minutes.

No one ever called her or mentioned her in the news until now – it’s obvious that she isn’t wanted there.

This, until Tyrion Lannister shows up at the bakery on Friday afternoon. Renly comes into the kitchen to tell her that Lannister wants to talk to her alone, and for real, what’s even up with her and Lannisters lately? Brienne tells Renly to send him to the kitchen – she has a batch almost ready and she can’t let it burn.

“Charming place,” Tyrion Lannister says as he walks inside. “Smells delicious, too, but one would know that, right?”

“Thanks, but I don’t think it’s why you’re here.”

“No. No, it isn’t. Well, no one else in the family agreed with me so I came myself, but it was to say thank you. The general opinion was that the situation was bad enough without telling the public that the precious heir didn’t get kidnapped because a woman saved his firm, round ass.”

“And without telling them that it was a woman such as me?” Brienne adds, knowing that Tyrion is holding something back. He looks apologetic.

“Sorry about that. But yes, that too. If it consoles you, there’s a reason why Jaime and Cersei are the one doing the press conferences and not me, but still, you saved his ass, you deserve someone from the family acknowledging it.”

“How is he doing?”

“Not fine. They had to amputate his hand – other than the raging infection, there wasn’t a whole bone left in there, no point in physical therapy and all that bullshit. And you don’t want to know what’ll be said about it during Sunday dinner.” There’s some venom in his voice, but Brienne can’t begrudge him that.

“Listen,” she says, “do you think – if I gave you a box of cupcakes… could you bring them over? I was thinking about having them sent, but I wouldn’t want to…”

“Wait a moment. You want me to bring him cupcakes?”

“I don’t think that I’ll be let in during visiting hours.”

Tyrion looks at her for a moment, keen eyes fixed on her hands as she takes the new batch out of the oven. He’s obviously trying to figure something out.

A minute later, he rubs his hands together and steals one of the red velvet cupcakes.

“Let’s say that you could bring them yourself. Would you do it?”

“If I could? Yes, but –”

“When do you get off work?”

“At six thirty. Why?”

“One hour from now? Perfect. Well, well, then put together a pretty box filled with these delicious little darlings and wait on the corner on the right. Don’t bail out on me,” he says before leaving the kitchen.

Brienne hands Loras the new batch and while, in theory, she could rest, she spends the next hour working on a smaller one.

One hour later, when she leaves the bakery, she has in her hands a box filled with eight cupcakes – two caramel, two triple chocolate, two vanilla with strawberries and two banana.

She isn’t expecting a Mercedes to stop in front of her, and she isn’t expecting Tyrion to be on it. But he opens the door and tells her to get in, and so she does.

It doesn’t take her much to realize that they’re heading for a hospital.

\--

Tyrion tells her to wait outside the elevator before walking down an aisle after they get in; two minutes later, he comes back, huffing and muttering to himself that he hates running this much.

“All clear, I sent the two bodyguards to get some coffee and told them I was going to stay in. Quick – room fifty-five. I don’t think anyone’s going to show up for a couple hours at least, but if they do I’ll warn you.”

“Thank you,” Brienne tells him as she goes. He says something under his breath, but she doesn’t hear him.

Room fifty-five is nicer than any hospital room she’s ever been in – for one, it doesn’t smell of medicinal or of any usual hospital smell. It’s spotless and clean, and there’s a flat tv on the wall. But Brienne barely notices that, because her attention is all on Jaime, who is sitting up on the bed and looking at her as if she has grown two heads. He has cuts and bruises all over his face, all right, and his right arm is lying on the bed, the stump of his hand covered in white gauze. He looks terrible, but at least he’s alive, right?

“And how did you get here?” he asks, sounding as surprised as he looks.

“Your brother let me in,” she replies, moving closer. “I – I brought you these. I know it won’t make much of a difference, but –”

“Don’t stand there wench, get a chair. Should’ve said it sooner, but I got off morphine this morning and I still feel half-high.”

“This is probably going to sound terrible but – how bad are you feeling?”

“How considerate of you, wench. Everyone else doesn’t bother to put the _bad_ in it. I feel like crap and when the morphine wears off I’ll feel worse, but I’m alive, right? That said, I owe you.”

“You – no, you don’t!” Brienne puts the box on his nightstand and grabs a chair, sitting down next to him. “Just – don’t feel like you do. Really. It’s good enough to know that you’re fine. Well. As fine as it gets.”

Jaime stares at her for one moment, then shakes his head. “Sometimes I think you’re too nice to be fucking real,” he mutters, and Brienne pretends that she hasn’t heard it, especially since he hadn’t been talking to her.

“Whatever. So, what’s in the box? I’m afraid you’re gonna have to open it, but my left hand isn’t exactly cooperating right now.”

“Oh. Of course.”

She puts the box on her knees, opens the lid, turns it towards Jaime. He looks down at the contents, then up at her, then down at the contents a second time.

“You didn’t grab what you already had at the shop, did you?”

“I was there when your brother came. I had one hour left so… well.” She knows she’s flushing again, suddenly feeling as awkward as she used to feel around Renly or around any other man that wasn’t her father. “I just hope that you can eat them. I was a bit in a hurry but –”

“Wench, shut up. They look delicious. And of course I can, it’s not my stomach that they fucked up. Thank you. And don’t try to feel embarrassed about it. You’re the first person that actually brought me something.”

He doesn’t offer anything else and Brienne doesn’t push it. There’s a thin layer of sweat on his forehead and he looks a bit in pain, but she thinks that maybe he doesn’t want to talk about that.

“You know,” she says, trying to lighten up the situation. “Do you remember that jerk who came in last time you were in the gym?”

“What, Alliser-something? That son of a bitch who was sure he could knock out anyone without having ever trained seriously before?”

“That one.”

“What about him?”

“They put him against Tormund. He lasted five seconds.”

“Three more than I’d have given him. And how did he take it?”

“You should have seen him. He was so – so _angry_ , I wanted to laugh at him so much.”

Jaime snorts, his lips curling up as he reaches for the box and grabs one of the banana cupcakes. “I _would_ have laughed in his face. Told you, wench. You’re too nice for your own good, but then again I’d be an hypocrite if I complained, right?”

“Shut up and eat your cupcake,” Brienne replies, and as he takes a bite, for some reason she doesn’t feel too embarrassed anymore.

\--

It’s another half hour during which Brienne keeps the conversation strictly to gym gossip before Tyrion knocks on the door and gets in.

“Sorry to interrupt, but apparently our uncle’s coming in ten minutes.” He sounds half-apologetic, and Brienne gets that it’s time to go. She stands up, looks down at Jaime again.

“Get – get well. I still owe you a re-match.”

He shakes his head once before looking at her again. “Now that’d be a sight to see. Whatever. Hopefully I’ll be out of here before this darned week is over. I’ll see you around, wench.”

She nods quickly and gets out of the room, following Tyrion to the elevator. She’s surprised when he steps in with her.

“Shouldn’t you –”

“My uncle won’t mind one way or the other. And this place is outside regular bus routes, it’d take hours to get back to the shop. Also there are advantages to being able to afford a private driver.”

Brienne doesn’t refuse – after all, she should take three buses to get back home, so there’s no point in refusing when she could save time. Not to mention that she was supposed to call Jon Snow for more details about his sister’s birthday party and she can’t do it too late, since he’s on night patrol.

“Anyway,” Tyrion says some five minutes after they left in the car, “thanks for, you know, coming. It was nice of you.”

Brienne is tempted to bang her had on the window – why are both of them so fixed on her being nice enough to drop by?

“Can I ask you something rude?”

Tyrion lets out a small laugh. “Of course you can. I’m not especially fond of politeness.”

“Will you and your brother ever grasp the concept that it wasn’t me being nice, it was common decency? It’s – it’s not that I’m nice, it’s that bringing people something in the hospital to make them feel better is… is the right thing to do, not a favor. You’re both talking as if you owed me for this. You don’t owe me a thing.”

Tyrion stares at her and for one moment he looks as if he doesn’t have an answer. Then he lies back on the seat and looks out of the window.

“You’re right,” he concedes after a short while. “It’s – if you knew my illustrious father, you’d get why we do it. According to him, no one ever does anything for free or because it’s the decent thing to do. And let me tell you, if you looked more like your co-worker Loras, he’d have probably offered you a shitload of money to repay you. As it is, he likes to pretend you don’t exist. Then again, he likes to pretend that I don’t exist half of the time as well. Don’t take it personally. We don’t do nice as a general rule.”

Brienne thinks that it’s completely fucked up, but she doesn’t say it.

\--

She doesn’t see Jaime for the next two weeks. It’s a slow day because apparently Tywin Lannister is about to buy the only huge publishing house in the area that doesn’t belong to him already and the Lannister Inc. employees aren’t coming in as much as they usually do. Since she doesn’t have to bake she’s taking care of the coffees behind the counter while Loras waits tables and Renly is off somewhere interviewing people to see if he finds a suitable new additional waiter, and that’s when Jaime comes in.

Brienne can’t help staring at him wondering _what happened to him_ , because he looks horrible. He’s lost some weight, enough that it’s noticeable; he’s sporting an unkempt beard instead of being clean-shaved as usual. He’s also wearing a pair of ripped jeans and an old, faded red t-shirt that borders on pink by now, along with a jacket with too long sleeves that hide both of his hands. When he stops in front of her at the counter, she sees that he has bags under his eyes and he sends her a tired smile.

“Well, I said I’d have seen you,” he says, but he doesn’t sound as nonchalant as she thinks he’d like.

“What the fuck happened?” she replies without beating around the bush.

He snorts. “Nothing that I didn’t expect.”

When he doesn’t offer anything else, Brienne decides that she isn’t letting this one go. She asks Loras if she can take a small break. Loras looks at her, then at Jaime and then says that sure, it’s no problem. She tells Jaime to go sit at any table he’d like, then she prepares a hot, dark chocolate, grabs a couple of peanut butter cupcakes from the counter and puts the tray in front of Jaime before sitting in front of him.

“That’s it – on the house. What the fuck happened?”

He looks down at the tray, then up at her. For a moment he seems almost touched, but it’s gone in a flash. He takes a sip from the cup with a shaking left hand.

“You met my brother.”

“I did.”

“There’s a reason why he’s the one running half of the company from behind the scenes and that he never hosts the press conferences. And there’s a reason why I should be doing the same thing as him, right now.”

“ _What_?”

“Come on. You think cripples are a good thing for the image of the company?”

“It’s a hand! It doesn’t change who you are or what you can do.”

“Yeah, well, according to you. My sister visited once at the hospital and from then on she made clear that if I want to talk to her I have to hide my hand. She can’t _stand the sight_.”

He snorts, taking a bite from one of the cupcakes. “And it’s not as if I ever liked working there, wench. Business never was my thing. Conferences and such I could do – it was all public relations. But actually running that monster of a thing? I wouldn’t even know where the fuck to begin from.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brienne blurts out as he takes another sip. She shouldn’t be so blunt, it’s still his family they’re discussing, but she can’t fathom how that could even happen. “It’s not that – it’s still you, hand or not.”

“I can’t do anything with this other one.” There’s such self-loathing in his voice that for a moment Brienne freezes. “My six-year old nephew could write better than I do. I can’t even use a knife properly. And fine, it’s going to get better, _obviously_ , but it doesn’t change any fucking thing in the long run. Also I fear that our re-match is indefinitely postponed.”

There’s just one thing Brienne has to say to that.

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“Bullshit. Stop it. People can play rugby while on a wheelchair or swim without a leg or an arm. And you threw a mean left already. Whenever you want to, you can have that re-match. And if it makes you feel better, I won’t use my right hand either.”

He stops chewing while he looks up at her. His face is unreadable, but Brienne doesn’t back down or anything – she keeps on staring at him.

And then he swallows and when he smiles at her, she thinks that her heart might stop. It’s not his lips half-quirking up or the trademark smirk. It’s small, but it’s real and it lights up his face even if he still looks horrible. No one, and even less no man, ever smiled at her like that.

“You actually mean that,” he says.

“I don’t waste breath saying stuff I don’t mean, Jaime.”

She doesn’t know what possesses her to reach out and put her hand on his right wrist. She feels the curve under the jacket’s fabric and she keeps the touch light, in case touching the scar might hurt.

“Would it be a problem if I hung around a while?” Jaime asks after a minute or two, his left hand still curled around the chocolate cup.

“Sure. It’s a slow day, no one is going to complain. I should probably go before Loras kills me, but – whatever you need, I’m at the counter.”

He nods and she stands up, ready to go back. And then –

“Brienne?”

She looks down at him, almost not believing her ears. He never called her by her full name.

“Yes?”

“Thanks,” he replies before looking down at his half-eaten cupcake.

Loras is baffled when she joins him behind the counter, her cheeks red and her lips slightly curled upwards, but he doesn’t comment on it.

\--

The next day, Renly comes in with the new waiter – or better, new waitress. She introduces herself as Ygritte. She’s an anthropology student, Brienne learns, and she wants to make some extra money for herself during the afternoons, which works perfectly because the busiest periods are from noon on. She’s pretty in a very non-conventional way, Brienne thinks – she has a lovely body, but she does nothing to show it off (the first day, she comes in with jeans and a large green sweater that wouldn’t make you guess that she has all the right curves in the right places). Her bright red hair isn’t braided or cut fashionably, just tied in a practical ponytail, and she has a couple crooked teeth, too. And she also tends to be very blunt when she speaks, but it’s all fine – she has a nice sense of humor and when they’re introduced she doesn’t look at Brienne in that slightly condescending way beautiful girls usually reserve her.

And to be entirely honest, when Jaime comes in at lunch time (looking slightly less scruffy than on the previous day) and she starts replying at his quips without losing a beat (Brienne is behind the counter because it’s a busy, busy day), it’s almost hilarious to hear them bickering. Ygritte doesn’t lower her voice when she tells Brienne that the douchebag at table four who thinks he’s Marlon Brando wants a triple chocolate cupcake, and when Jaime tells her that if he’s a douchebag then she’s a perfect match for him, Brienne has to keep herself from laughing out loud.

Renly says under his breath that he’s surrounded by crazies.

Maybe he does have a point.

\--

They see each other every day at the bakery, but it’s another two weeks before Jaime shows up at the gym again.

“You said you were going to give me that re-match,” he tells her, sounding slight unsure. He’s keeping his right arm against his chest, the stump still covered in gauze.

“Well, I’m not taking it back now. I’m too tall for everyone else in here, apparently. Hand-less or not, at least I don’t have to look down on you.”

“Listen, I asked if we could use that small training room instead of the regular ring. Is that fine with you?”

“Sure. It’s not as if I’m not going to look ridiculous if I use my left hand only, right?”

“… you were serious about that part, too?”

“Shut up. Of course I was.”

It’s not as if she cares what anyone else thinks, but she gets why he wants to keep it private. She can’t help thinking that he really lost some weight, when he takes off his shirt, but she doesn’t comment on it.

\--

It is a disaster, at the beginning, for the both of them. He’s rusty, since he hasn’t practiced in a month if not more, but it’s not as if she fares much better. Not using her right hand makes Brienne lose balance half of the time and the only reason she doesn’t go down is that he isn’t adjusted to only rely on his left, either. And they do look ridiculous, but after half an hour of the both of them missing every hit they were trying to pull, he does manage to get her on the right side of her face.

It doesn’t hurt much, he probably isn’t in top condition and he can’t hit as hard as he usually would, but it’s technically perfect.

“If you have any doubts about having lost your touch, you can forget them,” she tells him, but she doesn’t let him gloat too much – she has figured out how to move, and the next time she tries to hit him, it lands.

One hour later, they’re both exhausted and Brienne’s right arm is about to cramp from being kept still under her back, so they call it a night.

Brienne hadn’t planned on saying anything while not fighting, but she thinks she has to say this.

“You know,” she says as she grabs a towel and wipes sweat off her face, “you should give yourself more credit.”

“What?”

“Not using my right arm was driving me crazy and it was one hour.”

“It still wasn’t very dignified.”

“Because you haven’t trained in a month. You seemed enough at ease. It’s – if you think you’re not doing good with that, you’re unfair to yourself.”

He doesn’t give her a direct answer and she figures it’s the end of the conversation.

But then he grabs her arm before she can leave for the changing room.

“Listen,” he starts, and he really looks embarrassed now. “The police said that they shouldn’t try it again, but – well, would you mind if I waited for you before getting out? I only have to get to the other block, but –”

“All right. Sure.”

“You don’t mind? I’m sorry, I should –”

“For fuck’s sake, you could have died,” she hisses. There are people around, better to keep it down. “It’s only normal that you don’t want to walk the same road on your own. Wait for me at the door.” Then she leaves, and for a moment she thinks that if she met Jaime’s father, she’d be tempted to punch him in the face.

\--

Jaime is waiting for her at the door, bag on his shoulder; she follows him out, unable to keep herself from glancing at the street.

“Where?”

“This way,” he replies, turning left. When they’re about to cross the road, Brienne sees the same Mercedes that Tyrion was riding in that day; but when they cross, it’s Cersei that comes out of it, slamming the door, and she looks none too pleased.

“You’re late,” she tells accusingly. Brienne almost feels guilty – he was late because it takes her ten extra minutes to dry her hair.

“Am I not allowed to?” he snaps back. “It’s ten fucking minutes and it’s not like you’re in a hurry.”

“And what would you know about that? As if this whole thing has even a point – you should stay home and try to be useful, not wasting your time here.”

“Excuse me if I’m doing something I like.”

“Yes, like _that_?”

Brienne knows, _knows_ that she should keep her mouth shut and leave, but she’s been on the wrong side of this conversation too many times and she just can’t.

“He’s still good at it. Better than some people in there for sure.”

The moment Cersei’s attention moves on her, Brienne almost takes it back. The woman is shorter than her but she can make you feel small with merely a look.

She almost takes it back.

“And who are you, his lawyer?”

“No, I’m someone who knows what she’s talking about. That said, most people I know would be wallowing in their own misery if they lost a hand. I’d suggest you to think about it. And now, sorry but I have a bus to catch.”

She turns her back on the both of them, walking quickly towards the bus stop – Cersei is telling her to come back, but she doesn’t have time for arguing.

And having the last word did feel satisfying.

\--

She doesn’t expect to find herself in front of Cersei the following morning, the moment she gets out of the building where her small apartment is. Cersei is standing in front of the Mercedes, dressed in a gorgeous, tailored red set of skirt and jacket. Things you’d wear at a press conference and that Brienne couldn’t probably afford without putting together three months of salary at least.

“I have to go to work, so whatever this is, make it quick. Not everyone can go into their office at their leisure.” Brienne keeps her tone clipped – it’s six thirty AM, she has to be at the bakery in half an hour and to be entirely honest, seeing someone else looking so perfectly put together this early is making her feel as if the world is an absolutely unfair place. It’s not something she usually feels, it’s no point being jealous of others’ good looks when you don’t have them yourself, but sometimes it’s inevitable.

“You really don’t know who you’re talking to, do you.”

“Yes, I do. And I also know that considering how much pie your other brother orders from where I work, I don’t think that I risk losing my job. So, what do you want?”

“I should be the one asking you that.”

Brienne blinks at Cersei. It’s too early for riddles.

“I don’t get it.”

“What do you want from my brother?”

When Brienne gets what the question meant, she almost sees red.

Fiery red.

“If you think I want to con some money out of him, you can forget it.”

“And why else would you even spend time with him?”

“What kind of question is that? Can’t two people spend time with each other now?”

“Not when one of them is you and the other one is him.”

Brienne doesn’t want to start the day making Cersei Lannister angry – she’d rather avoid it – but she also has no time to lose and the last thing she needs is someone accusing her of something as ludicrous as wanting to… seduce Jaime or something.

As if _she_ would seduce anyone.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re aiming at. The first time I knocked your brother out during a match, I just wanted to teach him some fucking perspective. I was ready to be done with him. _He_ was the one who introduced himself, he was the one asking me for re-matches and he was the one who talked to me first at any given occasion. Believe me, I usually don’t start conversations with men, especially if they look like fashion models. Then I happened to be around during that attempted kidnapping, and you should probably thank _me_ , since if I hadn’t been there it’d have probably gone as they hoped.” She stops, takes a breath and starts again, not letting Cersei interrupt her. “And apart from that, we happen to have interests in common, he happens to like hanging out where I work and he happens to be a good sparring partner. I don’t mind spending time with him and I suppose he doesn’t mind doing the same either, and that’s all there is to it. I don’t want anything else from him. I’ve lived until now with what I earned, I’ll keep on doing it. And if you were about to offer me money to stand out of his way, don’t. I wouldn’t want his and I don’t fucking want yours. We’re both grown-ups and he has a right to pick whoever he wants to spend his time with. As do I. And with that, you’re making me late for work. Have a great day.”

She’s glad that Cersei has heels – it’s not as if she can run after her while she hurries to the bus stop on the other side of the road.

But when she turns back and glances at the car, Cersei is still there, staring at her as she stands still in the first light of dawn.

Well, whatever. If there’s one thing Brienne doesn’t have, that thing is time for this shit, and she isn’t giving up the only more or less decent relationship she has managed to form with someone in the last ten years because Cersei Lannister has a problem with her.

\--

That morning, Jon Snow comes to the shop (Brienne had told him to do it, so that he could give her the definitive list of what was needed from the birthday party). Brienne has just taken a carrot cake and an apple pie out of the oven, so she takes a small break and tells him to go to the bottom part of the counter.

“So,” Jon Snow starts, “there are going to be at least twenty-five kids. All male.”

“All?”

“Well, Arya never liked playing with dolls, that’s for sure. So well, I guess I’ll need a very big cake? And at least three cupcakes for each. I know it’s a lot but I swear, at that age they’re locusts, that’s what they are.”

“No problem. But I suppose I shouldn’t count only your sister’s friends, right?”

“No. It’s six of us, but Robb and me won’t eat that disgusting amount of stuff. My little brothers will though, it’s two of them. And then – well, whatever you decide to bake, no pink whatsoever. But – well, my other sister, Sansa – she’d probably love pink cupcakes, so if you want to throw in a couple that’d be great. Or something lemon-y.”

“So, twenty-five plus six from the family, and no pink except for your other sister? I can work with it,” Brienne says, noting it down. The bell rings and she notices Jaime coming inside the shop.

“Thank you. Gosh, it seemed like such a good idea, before I realized how many people me and Robb will have to watch.”

“You obviously knew nothing then,” Ygritte interrupts as she brings a couple of dirty tea mugs over the counter.

“Excuse me?”

“You knew nothing. Surprise parties for kids? You always end up with a storm of people to watch. And if it’s only two of you supervising, then you know even less.”

“Er, sorry, do I know you?”

“No, but it’s not as if I do either. It was just the truth. Anyway, I’m Ygritte. There, now you know me. And you are?”

“… Jon. Nice – nice to meet you?”

“Well then, nice to meet you too. If you need someone to help you, ask Renly for my number. I’ve handled my fair share of children’s parties. And with your permission, I’m going to get the other orders.”

And then she pinches his cheek before moving away from the counter. Brienne feels strangely consoled by the fact that Jon blushes at that. At least men aren’t immune from that kind of reaction.

“… excuse her? She’s… very blunt. But she’s nice, when you get to know her.”

“That’s – that’s okay,” Jon replies, watching Ygritte as she takes Jaime’s order. “She’s _something_ , that’s for sure. Listen, can I have the apple pie to go? Sam – my patrol partner, I mean – last time he said it was heavenly.”

“Sure.” Brienne grabs the pie, cuts a piece and puts it in a small box. “There you go. Four pounds. You said that you need all of this two Sundays from now?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” She takes one of the shop’s cards and scribbles her address on the back. “That’s my house address – I’ll be done by lunch, hopefully, and if I bake the cupcakes the same morning and the cake the day before everything should stay fresh. I guess you should come with a van or send someone with a big car – I don’t have one and I can’t deliver that much food on my own.”

“Don’t worry, I think I can work that one out. I’ll call you if there’s news. Thank you.”

“It’s a pleasure.”

Jon is about to get out when Ygritte walks by him and pats him on the hip without too many ceremonies. “Just so you know, I was serious before. Sayonara, Jon.”

He flushes red again before leaving the shop.

And then Jaime starts laughing.

Brienne is very, very thankful that it’s early, that Jaime is the only client and that both Renly and Loras left her and Ygritte in charge for the morning – they had to go buy curtains, of all things.

“Well, what’re you laughing about?” Ygritte asks.

“If you want to get into someone’s pants, saying that they know nothing isn’t usually a good approach.”

“Oh, I totally made an impression. And the point is being straight about it. Which I haven’t seen you doing, lately.”

“I’m not trying to get into anyone’s pants. Especially Jon Snow’s.”

“Maybe not into _Jon Snow_ ’s. But the other part of that sentence is the most blatant lie I’ve ever heard.”

Jaime strangely doesn’t say anything.

When someone else gets inside the shop, Jaime stands up and goes to the counter. He waits until Brienne hands Ygritte the coffee and a plate of pancakes for that client and Brienne knows that he wants to talk.

Fine.

“Listen, if this is about yesterday evening, I’m –”

“I haven’t even started and you’re apologizing? It’s not that. Now, not that I have a problem with it or anything, but did you seriously manage to leave my sister without a reply this morning?”

Brienne flushes, looking down at her hands.

“Well – apparently. In my defense, I didn’t have coffee yet and I wasn’t thinking too straight, but – she implied something I didn’t like and I couldn’t avoid it.”

“What did she say? She woke everyone up at the crack of dawn – well, fine, it was seven AM – and started saying that you were some kind of disgrace to the universe and that she doesn’t get why I even talk to you, but she didn’t share many details.”

“She thinks that I’m trying to con you. Or something.”

“What?”

“The question was what do I want from you, but she didn’t deny it when I asked her if it was… well, that. Apparently there’s no other reason for the fact that I’d want to talk to you.”

Jaime groans, shaking his head as he looks down at the counter.

“Fuck. And what did you tell her?”

“That I don’t want your money or hers, and that grown-ups have a right to pick who the hell they want to hang out with. I might have been harsh, but – well. It irked me.”

“Never mind that, it should have damn well irked you. Not to mention that she had no right to look you up and stalk you the moment you went out of the house. I don’t know what the fuck is with her – if I’m around she barely wants to look at me, but apparently I’m not allowed to have a life at the same time. I give up. Heck, you don’t even want to know what she said this morning after that tirade.”

“What?”

“Some idiotic cupcake analogy. According to her I’m like – the cover.”

“The _frosting_? I don’t get it.”

“Well, y’know, it’s all sugar and decoration and makes the cake look pretty, but if you look into it there’s no substance whatsoever. Or at least that’s what I behave like after that little accident, according to her.”

“You can tell her that the cake doesn’t have much sense on its own.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. It’s… nothing. I mean, it has more substance and you can’t have a cupcake without a base, obviously, but it’s not worth much without the frosting. It’s what makes it really good instead of plain and unnoticeable. It’s – well, I wouldn’t call that analogy an insult.”

“Huh,” Jaime says. “Too bad that I hadn’t known that this morning. Late retorts never work.”

“You have one if she uses it again, right?”

“Guess I do. Oh, I was forgetting. You don’t want to know what happened in the changing room yesterday.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Well, the Alliser Thorne guy? He started saying that Tormund had been just lucky. I suppose it was about the time you told me about.”

“Oh dear. I suppose that Tormund made him repent before a minute passed by, didn’t he?”

“You should have seen that. Hey, next time you should come into the men’s room – it’s not like they’d stop you.”

Brienne laughs at it, and it might be the first time that she does because someone joked about how un-womanly she looks, and she never tells Jaime that in her head she _had_ done the cupcake comparison a couple of times, and both times she had felt as if she could only have been the base.

There are things he doesn’t need to know.

\--

A couple of days later, she dreams that she’s training with Jaime again, and it’s not news. But at some point she puts a foot in the wrong way and he stops her before she falls down. His arms wrap around her waist, one hand on his stomach (the other one is missing, but the arm is above the other). She remembers how his left hand had felt in hers before turning her head, and before their lips meet she wakes up with sweat breaking all over her face.

She lies in the dark after that, unable to go back to sleep and trying to forget she ever had that dream.

It’s not as if dreams aren’t everything that she’s going to have, and if some part of her wants more than friendship, it’ll have to shut the fuck up.

Cersei Lannister was right about one thing. Women like her don’t belong with men like Jaime. Not in _that_ sense, at least.

(It doesn’t stop her from reaching down with her hand, touching her wet underwear.)

\--

She tries to forget about it.

Until one day first Jaime doesn’t show up for three days in a row, and then Tyrion walks into the shop on Friday afternoon. Loras comes into the back and tells her that the other Lannister brother wants to see her _again_ , and Brienne finds him sitting at the counter. He probably climbed over one of the chairs – there’s almost his height between his legs and the ground.

“So,” he says, “case is, I need to talk to you.”

“You need to talk to _me_?”

“And to no one else. Since you don’t read gossip papers, I suppose you don’t know that my brother has apparently moved out of the family mansion for good. The only upside until now has been that my father hasn’t complained to me about anything I have fucked up lately, but that’s not the point. Well, I’d have done the same in his position, but that isn’t the point either.”

“Stop beating around the bush. What do you mean?”

“See, my brother can be remarkably smart. But at times he can also be remarkably stupid, and since this talk fell on deaf ears, I figured I might see if you were less of a thickheaded idiot. No offense. This stated, my brother also has a tendency not to see it when he has something good for him in front of his nose. And I’m afraid it’s happening right now.”

“It is?”

“Yes. Because he still hasn’t come clean with you.”

“He hasn’t _what_?”

“True, you haven’t done that with him either, but I wouldn’t blame you for not doing it. I know how it is.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Fine, fine. You know that frankly terrible book, _he’s not just that into you_? Or she? I can’t remember. Well, we have the opposite case. He’s _that much_ into you.”

Brienne feels as if she might faint.

“He isn’t.”

“Oh, he is. And you are, too. Which is quite a feat in itself – he’s easy to like, but from there to being into him? There’s a long way.”

“But – we’re just friends, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Right now, you definitely are. But look at me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t want to tap that firm ass of his. Metaphorically speaking.”

Brienne _knows_ that she’s blushing so hard that her cheeks might as well be on fire, but when she opens her mouth to deny it… she realizes that she can’t. She closes it.

“Exactly what I thought. Well then,” he says grabbing one of the bakery’s cards and scribbling something behind it, “that’s where he’s currently staying. I don’t know for how long, but at least throughout this weekend. I suggest you pay him a visit. You’re more than welcome to make a move on him, as far as I’m concerned – and don’t worry, he won’t say no.”

“Wait – wait a moment. I thought your family didn’t approve of me and him seeing each other.”

“Who said anything about me? I’m not playing the messenger for the Sunday lunch jury. I’m here because he’s my brother and I want what’s best for him, and as far as I’m concerned, you passed the test with flying marks. You want a piece of paper to show it?”

“And why’s that?”

“With the premise that I don’t give a damn about how you look – hey, it’s not as if I’m much more charming than you, for most people anyway… you’re a decent person, you don’t give a shit about his money, you actually don’t give a shit about his surname, period. You do like him but it’s not because he has that lovely, pretty face of his. And you make him happy.”

Brienne wishes that she had a chair. This is too much. She can’t take this conversation.

“ _I_ do?”

“He hasn’t said that out loud, but I live with him. Used to live with him. Whatever. The only times I’ve seen him look good since that failed kidnapping were when he came back from training with you and when we ended up mentioning you. For the rest? He’s been a wreck. And you have no idea how he was during the first two weeks – he quit with the moping when you told him to stop feeling fucking sorry for himself, and his twin couldn’t do it. And stop thinking that he could never want to get into your pants. He’s probably the one person I know who never gave a shit about my height – he can see beyond your face.”

“That’s why you want me to – do this, don’t you?” Brienne asks, her voice quiet.

Tyrion stares at her for one moment, then shrugs. “You’ll admit that when your only relative that ever gave a damn about you isn’t having a great time but could have it if only they grew some balls, you might want to speed things up for them if you can. Or wouldn’t you?”

Brienne has nothing to say at that. She shakes his head.

“Good girl. I see that I wasn’t mistaken when I thought you might be more receptive. Good luck, but you won’t need it.”

“Wait – if he’s interested, why wouldn’t he – I mean, why should I say it first?”

“He said that he isn’t doing nothing about it because you’re too good for him. Which isn’t probably entirely bullshit, but who even cares? Go and sweep him off his feet or whatever – I think you have enough muscles to do that easily.”

And then he jumps down from the chair and gets out, and without stealing anything from the counter first.

Brienne is left with her heart hammering against her chest, the card with a hotel room number clutched between her fingers.

\--

It’s Friday, and she skips practice.

Jaime probably won’t be there anyway.

Instead, she goes through her cupboards. She isn’t sure that she has enough guts to… make a move, as Tyrion put it, but she can say it the way she knows best.

She finds what she had been looking for – she won’t need to buy groceries. Good. She was supposed to do that tomorrow in order to bake for Jon’s surprise party anyway, but this can’t wait until then.

She settles on a red velvet base – after all, the Lannister company logo is golden and red. She prepares four, then works on a butterscotch frosting while the bases are in the oven. She decides to keep the frosting soft and works it until she likes the consistence. Then she opens a bag of random candy that she never had the chance to use, picks a number of green sweets and cuts them into smaller pieces before throwing everything into the frosting.

When the cupcakes are done, the base is deep red, the frosting is a dark, deep yellow that could pass for almost golden in the right light and there are small sprinkles of green hidden inside it.

They smell delicious. And they look pretty great, too. Brienne takes a breath or ten, then leaves the cupcakes on the kitchen table to cool. She takes a short shower, puts on a good pair of jeans and the only tailored blouse she owns (it’s plain white and she had paid it with her first paycheck; it’s nothing special, but she’s usually stuck with t-shirts because blouses are never cut for people with large shoulders and small breasts, and even if she buys shirts for men, there’s always something that never fits. This one does). She gives up on trying to comb her hair into something that isn’t a ponytail and in the end she leaves it loose. It’s not as if it isn’t straight as an arrow – it won’t get ruffled. She doesn’t even look at the few make-up items she owns – she hasn’t used them in years. Make-up makes her look ridiculous.

Then she looks up the hotel’s name – it’s a good one, obviously, and to get into that part of town she’d need two buses.

For the first time in years, she calls a taxi.

\--

She tells the driver to wait for her. It won’t take long, anyway. She says that she has a delivery for Mr. Lannister (they believe her – she used one of the shop’s boxes to put the cupcakes in, even if she has taken care to seal it and wrap a small, red bow around it), they let her in.

When she arrives in front of room 357, she takes another deep breath and knocks.

Jaime opens the door and he stops dead in his tracks when he sees her. Not that this isn’t having effects on her, either – he’s wearing jeans and a half-open black shirt that doesn’t leave much to imagination.

“I – uh, how did you know I was here?”

“Your brother told me,” she says, forcing herself not to look down. She can’t panic now. “He also told me – some other things, but this is not the place. I just – take this.”

She hands him the box and he takes it, looking surprised.

“Brienne, what –”

“You’ll understand when you open it.” _Hopefully_. “Whatever your answer is – I’m at home for the whole weekend.” She put a small card with her home address inside the box – hopefully he’ll find it. “And if – if the answer’s no, then it’s a gift for the new house.”

“Wench, this is a hotel room,” he says, not unkindly.

“I know. But it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”

And then she turns her back on him and hurries downstairs.

The moment she gets inside the taxi, she thinks she’ll start hyperventilating, but she’s glad she did it.

Now if only it was tomorrow already, but she wants to give him a chance to think about it, and that couldn’t have happened if she had stayed.

\--

The morning after, she ends up having groceries delivered – it’s a quantity of stuff that she could have never managed for herself. She spends the morning planning what to make and determining the quantities. Then she sets out to bake a carrot cake large enough for at least forty people. (In case someone wants a double portion.)

It takes her the entire afternoon to get it done, and it fits into the oven for some kind of miracle, but when it’s done, she can’t help being happy with it – it didn’t burn and it came out without any imperfection.

She grabs some spray whipped cream and a bottle of chocolate syrup, writes _happy birthday, Arya_ in the center with the latter. Then she realizes that maybe the whipped cream should wait for tomorrow. She puts the cake in the fridge and figures that it’s time to clean up, and then the doorbell rings.

_Jaime. It has to be Jaime._

And of course she’s covered in flour, her fingers are smeared in chocolate and she’s wearing this old shirt with the _Casablanca_ poster on it that used to belong to her dad, that’s how old it is, but there’s no way she can change without losing ten minutes.

Fine.

She opens the door and yes, there he is. And he has his left hand hidden behind his back – the right arm is at his side.

“Those cupcakes’ colors weren’t casual, were they?”

Straight to the point, apparently. “They weren’t.”

“Wench, you’re – I don’t think I even have words,” he says, but that’s not unkind either. Brienne’s heart is threatening to break out of her chest.

“There’s a piece of paper in my shirt’s pocket. Take it.”

“Can’t you do it?”

“Sorry, I need to use my left hand for another thing. So, will you?”

Brienne nods, taking it carefully. She doesn’t exactly want to smear flour over his silk red shirt (and it does match his eyes and hair perfectly, and for a moment Brienne hears Cersei saying, _what would someone like you do with a man like him?_ ).

The sheet was grabbed from the hotel’s notepad, there’s the logo in the upper corner.

There’s a sentence written on it, in a shaky hand and with a frankly terrible penmanship, but then again you don’t learn to write with your left in two days.

She reads it once.

Then she thinks she must have read it wrong and goes through it again.

At the third time, she has to concede that the piece of paper undoubtedly says _so what, I’ll be the frosting to your cupcake_?

She’s about to tell him that this has to be the corniest pick-up line in the history of corny pick-up lines, even if it’s not as if she can complain since no one has ever used a pick-up line on her.

And then she raises her head from the sheet and sees that he moved his hand from behind his back.

It’s one of those cupcakes she baked yesterday.

“It’s the last one,” he says, sounding half-apologetic. “So? I hear that bases are plain and they don’t look too charming to the outside eye, but then again the frosting kind of sucks at being functional without them.”

“You – and then you say that _you_ don’t have words for me?”

“I wasn’t the one coming up with a cupcake that you should probably sell with my name on the tag. And you still haven’t answered. Yes, no, maybe?”

“Do you think I’d have come up with _that_ if – if the answer was anything but yes?”

Jaime stares at her for one second, his eyes becoming a slightly darker green. “I think,” he says, “that you need to let me in and that you need to close this door.”

Brienne moves out of the way and slams the door shut. When she turns her back to it, Jaime has put the cupcake on a small table she keeps near the entrance and he’s inches from her.

His left hand moves up, cupping her cheek, and she shivers. He has warm fingers, and his thumb draws a circle on her cheekbone before he moves closer.

“Just for kicks,” he whispers, “please tell me that I’m not the first that does this.”

“And why shouldn’t you be?” she teases. “But – well. Not technically. I had a boyfriend once, but then I found out that it was – it was some kind of bet.”

“A _what_?”

“He and his friends had bet that he could get into my pants in less than a week. I found out on the third day. And – I might have slapped him outside school ground. So – I kissed him, yes, but it wasn’t anything special.”

There’s something fond in the way he looks at her. “What an ass. Then again, that’s not entirely unpleasant news.”

“Why?”

“I hate sharing,” he replies, and then he kisses her.

Brienne had spent half of her teenage years (the ones before Ronnet Connington, at least – after that, she had needed to take a reality check) dreaming about the kind of kisses you hear about in songs. The ones that are always perfect and leave you with butterflies in your stomach, your lips tingling and your heartbeat doubling. But after her reality check, she had resigned herself to the harsh truth – it wasn’t the kind of thing that happened to her.

Except that now – _now_ this is better than love songs. It isn’t a rushed or heated kiss as she might have expected from him – Jaime keeps it slow, his lips moving against hers and his tongue running over her teeth once in a while. When her own tongue meets his, he tastes butterscotch and that makes her stomach fill with a certain, pleasant warmth. His hand is still there on her cheek, his arm around her waist, and while he’s pressing her up against the wall there’s no forcing or urgency in this. He’s kissing her as if he doesn’t want to fuck it up. When she brings her hands up to his face and her fingers tangle in his hair (and it’s as soft as she thought it’d be), he lets out a small moan into her mouth and Brienne hopes that she hasn’t somehow fallen asleep on the kitchen table and dreamt all this.

When it’s over, his cheeks are slightly flushed, but he’s grinning as he brushes a strand of hair from her forehead.

“I hope I lived up to that other one,” he teases, and she’s almost tempted to smack him.

“That other one? I already forgot who you’re talking about.”

He laughs before his lips meet hers again, and Brienne thinks that she’s going to send Tyrion a full-fledged butterscotch red velvet cake as soon as she has time for it.

\--

She doesn’t know how much time has passed when the phone rings – it’s not as if she’s counting it, not when it’s the first time she has legitimately made out with someone (and what was she missing). She curses under her breath, regretfully having to move from her position, and when she answers, after running to the kitchen where the nearest phone is, it’s some operator who wants to offer her a cable subscription, she slams the phone back in the counter instead of giving them an answer.

“Woah, I never thought I’d see you doing something so rude one day,” Jaime says from behind her. His left hand closes around her hip.

“I wasn’t planning on interrupting that,” she replies. She knows she’s flushing, but it’s not as if it matters.

“And what were you doing here anyway? It looks like a battlefield.”

“Try to bake a carrot cake big enough for forty people, then we can discuss it.”

“Oh dear, the surprise birthday party?”

“Yeah. I’m leaving the rest for tomorrow though. It’d get stale if I did it now, anyway.”

Jaime moves away, having a look around.

“Listen, do you want a drink or anything? I haven’t even thought of –”

And then she freezes.

There’s something on her neck. Something warm and soft and –

She reaches out with her hand and sees that it’s the spray whipped cream.

And all right, it’s in Jaime’s left hand indeed, she sees when she turns towards him again.

“Very funny. You know that I need that for tomorrow, don’t you?” She doesn’t mention that she has another tube.

“I couldn’t resist. Your neck looks pretty tasty, you know.”

“Oh, _does_ it?”

For an answer, he leans down and licks a stripe of whipped cream and she can’t help it – she lets out a small moan, and she can feel him grinning when that happens.

Well. She hadn’t left out only the whipped cream. The chocolate topping is within her reach. She grabs it while Jaime is still distracted and she pops up the lid. The moment he leans back, licking his lips, she brings it forward and sprays it on the left side of his face.

For a moment he only stares at her, but then he bursts out laughing, and it’s such a good look on him.

“You’ll never not counteract, won’t you?”

“You’re welcome to find a way to stop me.”

And then, since he started this first, she takes a step forward and moves her lips and tongue over the left side of his face, not minding that the chocolate had ended up in his short beard. She can feel him shivering when she licks out some from the corner of his mouth and she has this impression that this isn’t stopping here.

She feels her blood rushing downwards and for a moment she feels her legs almost giving out. As sad as it is, the last time she was in this situation, she had ended up kicking Ronnet Connington in the knee because he had pretended not to hear her when she said she didn’t want to have sex with him; she has to force herself not to start thinking about this. It’d mean starting to worry because she has no experience whatsoever, but she doesn’t let her rational mind have the best out of her. Nothing has gone wrong until now, and she wants to do this like she has wanted few other things in her life, and Jaime probably worked out that part already – it’s not as if it’d be hard to do it.

When she’s done with the chocolate clean-up duty, she moves back enough to look at him in the eyes. They’re dark green now, his pupils slightly blown, and his shirt is most definitely ruined – between the flour on her hands and some whipped cream and chocolate that ended up on it, it’s not going to be easily salvageable.

He doesn’t look as if he cares, though.

“I was thinking. We should – maybe we should move this to the bed?” His cock is pressing against her thigh, half-hard already.

“I think you should show me the darned room already,” he breathes against her mouth, and she grabs his arm and runs out of the kitchen. Her room is in front of it – it’s not as if it’s a mansion – and she slams the door closed after they’re in. She finds Jaime’s eyes moving across the room. It’s not as if there’s much to see – the only piece of furniture she spent good money on has been a queen sized bed. For the rest she only has a bookshelf and a small desk, and the only other visible items around are a couple of family pictures (one with both her mother and father, one with just her dad).

She doesn’t expect Jaime to go sit on the bed after a moment. His hair is disheveled and the shirt half-open, and Brienne’s lips go dry.

“Huh. Not bad, wench, not bad. No one can say that you can’t pick a bed. And I see that you didn’t leave your weapon.”

Brienne hadn’t even realized that she had brought the dark chocolate syrup along.

She moves towards the bed then, putting a knee on the side of his thigh, opening the syrup’s lid again.

“You don’t look heartbroken about it.”

His left hand slips the button of her old jeans through its hole, pushes the zipper down. “I like it when you counteract, anyway.”

He grabs the collar of her t-shirt and drags her down, his lips smashing against hers, and Brienne slams the syrup on the nightstand before kissing back for real. His tongue runs against hers, his hand still fisted in her shirt; she thankfully wasn’t wearing shoes before. She pushes her jeans down, getting rid of them before putting her other knee around Jaime’s other thigh. He brings his hand down, running it over her leg until his fingers touch the wet fabric of her plain white panties. She moans into his mouth, her fingers shaking while she unbuttons his shirt and pushes it down his shoulders. When they part, his cheeks are flushed and he’s looking at her as if he wants to ravish her right here and right now.

She moans again when he presses over the wet patch on her underwear.

And then she grabs the syrup and sprinkles it over his shoulder, half-covering it in chocolate.

“You can’t keep yourself from that?” he breathes out.

“You started it,” she replies before leaning down and licking a stripe up his shoulder. And then his finger slips beneath her underwear and when the warm, rough tip traces her outer lips, she almost bites down. But she manages to move to another patch of chocolate instead, humming over his wet skin while his finger keeps on tracing her clit.

And then Jaime moves back.

“Hey. Get down on the bed.”

“Jaime…?”

“Just do it.”

She moves back, putting her feet back on the ground before sitting on the bed and leaning back on the pillow. Jaime kicks off his shoes and turns on his stomach. Then he brings his left hand on her underwear and drags it down her legs, throwing it on the ground.

“Spread your legs,” he says, and she does without questioning it.

Then he leans down and after placing a kiss on her inner thigh, his tongue runs over her clit and she can’t help it – she screams so loud that there’s no way the neighbor didn’t hear her.

Frankly, she couldn’t care less.

He doesn’t only tease though. He runs his tongue all over her warm, wet flesh, and she can’t help it – she moves one hand down over his head, running her fingers through that so-very-soft hair, and it seems that it does encourage him because he keeps on flickering his tongue around her clit and past it. Brienne knows that she’s repeating his name and maybe saying something else, too, but she can barely distinguish what’s coming out of her mouth. She feels strung in a way she’s never felt before, and the moment he moves his head up, leaning back, she almost cries out in displeasure. This before he crashes his lips to hers again, and he tastes bitter now, not like butterscotch, but it doesn’t make a difference. She thrusts up, her leg brushing against his cock, and he’s so hard, she doesn’t know how he can stand being in his jeans still.

“Hey,” he says, breathless, when it’s done. “Can I – I mean, if you want me to finish like before –”

She doesn’t dignify him with an answer and works his jeans open instead. He sits on her side, getting rid of both trousers and underwear, then looks down at her again, then at his right arm. He frowns at it, shaking his head.

“Fine, wench. I think it’s high time for you to get on top.”

Brienne moves away so that he can take her place, moves so that her knees are around his thighs again. She’s still wearing that ragged shirt, which is also sweaty now on top of everything, so she shrugs and takes it off, throwing it on the ground. Jaime whistles at that, and she’d like to know _what_ he’d do it for – it’s not as if her chest is this thing to marvel at. But then he raises up his hand, cups one of her breasts (it fits perfectly in his palm, she realizes), and she can’t help shuddering all over.

And then she looks down at his until now neglected cock and he’s hard enough that there’s pre-come smeared over the head. She swallows, moving so that she’s right where she needs to be. He moans when she moves her hand down to his hard-on and the neighbors definitely hear him when she lowers herself onto it.

She takes it slow, after all she might be high on adrenaline but it’s not as if she has done this already, and it does hurt some, but he doesn’t urge her to speed up and lets her take her time. She moves down at her leisure until he’s buried inside her, and then she doesn’t even think straight anymore – she rolls her hips downwards while he thrusts upwards, his left hand digging into her hip as he tries to sit up, leaning on his right elbow. It’s enough for her to lean down so that their lips can meet – he’s saying her name all over ( _Brienne_ , not wench), and it sends a jolt through her spine. She barely can see straight by now, and when he gives a last thrust upwards and comes inside her she follows him suit, clenching around him, her entire body shaking. She knows that she falls downwards but then she feels his arm go to her shoulders and she doesn’t care either way. It feels too good to worry about anything else.

When she opens her eyes, maybe a minute later, her forehead is pressed against his and he’s breathing hard, his eyes closed. She pulls out slowly, and there’s blood on the sheets and smeared down her thigh. She drops down on his left side and he turns towards her, opening his eyes. He looks down at the sheet and at himself, then he shakes his head.

“Well, since both of us are filthy,” he whispers, “maybe you could show me your shower?”

Brienne’s lips go dry at the very idea.

“Well, I _could_ , but I’m not so sure that both of us would fit in there.”

“You won’t know unless you try it, will you?”

It’s not as if she can resist it when he pulls out the charming tone.

“Fine. Let me get rid of the sheets and I’ll be more than happy to introduce you and my shower. I’d hope you become good friends.”

He doesn’t miss the hidden meaning, and five minutes later, Brienne is very happy to find out that, while it’s very cramped, they do fit inside her shower.

\--

He helps her change the sheets later, and then for a moment she doesn’t even know what to say. What do you do in this kind of cases? It’s not late enough to go to sleep, and she has no experience whatsoever with the general etiquette, but it’s not the moment to get paranoid. He obviously isn’t looking for a one-time thing and she isn’t about to fuck this up because she’s been told for all of her life that women like her don’t belong with men like him.

“I was thinking,” she says after covering the bed with a new duvet, “maybe you could stay for dinner? I can come up with something better than take-away.”

“To be entirely honest with you, I was hoping you’d let me stay the night – that bed in my hotel room isn’t half as comfortable as yours. But only if you –”

“Sure.”

It’s not as if she’s going too fast, she thinks as they leave the room for the kitchen. But she isn’t going to lose time here, and all that bullshit about burning through the usual steps too fast is – well, bullshit. Now that she has a good thing going her way, she isn’t holding back just because some faint voice in her head says that it’s the proper thing to do.

\--

In the end, it turns out that he obviously hadn’t brought a change of clothes along, let alone anything resembling pajamas. But he’s apparently fine with wearing one of her shirts, specifically one that she bought at an Ani DiFranco concert, and while she’s pretty sure that it’s not his genre, she can’t help blushing whenever she looks his way.

She thinks she understands why Renly keeps on saying that he loves it when Loras wears his shirts.

When he gets inside the bed, she doesn’t know what to expect. He picks the right side of the bed, so she sticks to the left.

“I was thinking,” he says after a minute.

“You can do that?”

“Oh, shut up. When I was walking up the stairs, I saw that there’s a place for rent on the second floor?”

“Yes, I think so. The guy living there moved out a week ago or so but they didn’t get tenants yet. It’s very small though, maybe it’s because of that. I mean, I talked to the previous tenant a couple of times and I think it’s only one huge room with a kitchenette in the corner and then a bathroom, so I guess it’s hard to sell. Why?”

“I can’t stay holed up in that hotel forever and I’m not – well, moving back with the family. And it’s not as if I need a mansion. Or a kitchen.” He winks at her and she can’t help thinking that it’d be perfect. Living near but having separate places would mean seeing each other whenever without hurrying things up too much, and they could go to and from the gym together at least.

“The landlord lives on the last floor. He’s – well, he’s a bit strict, but he’s fair and he won’t make you overpay it. He’s also Renly’s brother actually, but I’m not so sure that you should mention it. I never understood if they hate each other or the contrary, but it’s not as if it’s my business.”

“Good. I can go talk to him tomorrow while you’re slaving over the birthday cupcakes.”

“Don’t make fun of that – I’ll be exhausted after.”

“I can work with that,” he says again, winking, and it’s – Brienne doesn’t know if she’s ever felt so good in her entire life, and before she even knows what she’s doing, she grabs his right wrist and kisses the side of the stump. He freezes for a moment, and she wonders if she has overstepped some boundary, but then before she can say sorry he turns over, brings that arm around her waist and moves so that his head is buried in the hollow of her neck. She brings her own arm around his back, cautiously, and her other hand goes to his hair.

“Jaime, is –”

“Shut up and go to sleep, wench.”

Brienne follows the advice and the last thing she thinks before falling asleep is that those songs she used to listen to were nowhere close to the real thing.

\--

She wakes up to Jaime’s fingers in between her legs, his mouth brushing over her shoulder; her hand grips his hip tighter at that, and she hears him chuckling. She realizes that her once clean underwear is getting wet again and she should feel embarrassed, all things considered.

“I have things to bake,” she protests feebly, but her heart is not in it.

“Oh, you’d renounce a perfectly good first-thing-in-the-morning orgasm just because you have to _bake_?”

Brienne doesn’t even attempt to answer, not when he’s pushing two of his fingers inside her, bending them a bit and making her moan again and again. He doesn’t pull out completely when he moves them away, and then they slide inside her again, his teeth biting gently into her shoulder.

She squirms, pushing back against him, not minding that it’s completely undignified, until she feels him grinning against the curve of her shoulder and she clenches around his fingers, her climax coming in a sweet, slow rush that has nothing to do with yesterday’s urgency.

As he cleans his hand over the sheet, he looks damn well satisfied with himself.

She’s almost tempted to pin him down against the bed when she sees that it’s seven AM already and Jon is supposed to pick food up at around one PM – she can’t linger here.

“I have to do that now, though,” she says, her voice slightly hoarse.

“And you’re leaving me here to a destiny of boredom?”

“First thing, it’s going to be five hours at most. Second, you could help me in there. I might even finish first.”

“… are you joking?”

“Why? Mixing ingredients isn’t a science, and you don’t want to do that, there are ingredients to weigh, eggs to break and the likes. And you could help me sorting out what to do first. You can be useful enough, I reckon.”

He thinks about it for one moment, then he shrugs and gets out of the bed, grabbing his jeans from the ground and pulling them on.

“What the hell, it can’t be too embarrassing than writing you that note.”

“Shut up. It was sweet. And it was the nicest thing anyone ever told me – no reason to feel embarrassed.”

For a second, she thinks that his cheeks might have flushed slightly. “It was? I thought you’d laugh in my face. It was just so corny.”

“Can’t argue on that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was wrong. And go wash your hands after I do, I’ll make it worth it.”

She goes to the bathroom and washes her hands quickly, puts on a pair of old jeans and an old, faded blue t-shirt and then grabs the chocolate syrup from the nightstand before going back to the kitchen. 

By the time he’s back from the bathroom (and while he has cleaned up he hasn’t taken off her shirt) there’s a plate with some eight pancakes in the middle of the table, along with all the other syrup she could find in the cupboards. He has a choice of maple, blueberry, strawberry and white chocolate, other than the one she used on him yesterday evening.

“I have a feeling I’m going to put back up all the weight I lost in that hospital before three months,” he says as he sits down.

“And that’d be only good for your health if you did. Knock yourself out, I need to sort out how to start with this insanity.”

“How many do you actually have to bake?” he asks as he helps himself to the blueberry syrup.

“Well, three for each kid would make seventy-five, but there’s also the parents, Jon and his brother, and if I’m not wrong Ygritte will crash the party or work it so that she has an excuse to show up. Let’s add the sister, her best friend and the other two brothers, at this point I’ll bake one hundred and fifty and be done with it.”

Jaime whistles as he eats his pancake, but he doesn’t joke about the amount of work she’s about to deal with. When they’re both done, she puts him on egg-breaking duty while she works on the bases. He protests that he’s getting all the muscle work when she tells him to weigh whatever she needs and to pass it over, but he doesn’t protest and he only sprays maple syrup on her cheek once.

\--

Ten minutes before Jon is supposed to show up, Brienne’s kitchen is covered in cupcakes. She had enough trays but not enough flat space, which is why they’re covering table, chairs and any other surface available. The result is impressive though, and she thinks it shouldn’t do badly. There are six cupcakes for Jon’s other sister and her best friend, three strawberry (‘Christ, wench, they’re so _pink_ I could throw up’) and three lemon; for the rest she has used a colorant to make a number of vanilla ones blue (enough for at least all of the twenty-five male kids), did a number of (safe) red velvet cheese and the orange velvet caramel (Jaime totally stole one while she wasn’t looking, but she had baked a couple more of those on purpose). Another batch is the triple chocolate– those should work fine – and she finished with one of peach and banana.

“Damn,” Jaime says while looking around the kitchen. “Now I’m starving.”

“Hands down. I might bake you the butterscotch ones after this gets cleaned up.”

“Oh, my favorites?”

“I said I might –”

And then the doorbell rings.

Brienne goes to open it, expecting to see two people.

It’s three. Jon is there, all right, along with another guy his age, with dark hair and similarly dark yes, who’s wearing an old shirt with _Asha Greyjoy’s Reavers in concert_ written on, and who looks mildly annoyed with the entire situation, and with a third man. A man who is Jon’s age and height too, but has bright ginger hair with a pair of striking blue eyes, and who can’t be anyone but –

“I figured three people were better than two,” Jon says. “This is my brother Robb,” he said gesturing to the ginger-haired man. “And that’s his friend Theon – he volunteered –”

“No, _you_ had _him_ ask me if I could lend you my car,” Theon replies. “And I’m not letting any of you drive Joni without me being present. So, where’s the stuff?”

“Always so polite,” Robb says, and while Brienne isn’t much into football or anything, she has no doubt that this has to be Robb Stark. Aka the main player for Winterfell United, who had this brilliant football career ahead of him until a couple of months ago, when he fucked up the decisive penalty in a match against Lannisport City. Which also happens to be owned by Tywin Lannister. And then a short while later the news exploded when it came out that he had had a short, heated tryst with Jeyne Westerling, who happened to be the daughter of the Lannisport City coach. This, while being engaged to – Brienne can’t remember the name, it was one of the daughters of the Winterfell United sponsor – Walder Frey, who owns this large food company that also sells the worst pre-made mix for muffins that Brienne ever had the disgrace to try.

Anyway, the pressure had been probably too much and Robb Stark had quit football, and no one knows what he’s been up until now. Maybe she’s about to find out, though.

“In the kitchen. I hope you brought some boxes?”

Robb moves forward, bringing along three; Theon rolls his eyes and follows with another two while Jon grabs a huge one he had put against the wall next to Brienne’s door.

And that’s when Robb almost slams into Jaime.

The scene is comical, to be quite honest – both of them look utterly baffled, but at least they don’t seem to resent each other.

“Huh. And what are you doing _here_?” Jaime asks first.

“Who do you think his brother is?” Robb answers, eyeing Jon. “Not the same mother, but it doesn’t change anything. And what are _you_ doing here?”

“Considering that he’s wearing a shirt that’d look much better on _her_ , and that she has a hickey the size of your father’s pool on her neck, I think it’s safe to say they’re screwing,” Theon replies. To his credit, he says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world and not as if they’re the weirdest match since the beginning of times.

“Theon!” Robb hisses, flushing red.

“And who are you, by the way? Nice shirt, though. I love that band.”

“I’m the best friend with the car always available. And that’s my sister’s band,” Theon mumbles under his breath.

“No way,” Jaime blurts. “You’re _Asha Greyjoy_ ’s brother?”

“I happen to be, but we don’t play the same kind of stuff.”

“And what’d that be?”

“Come on, why did you think he named his car after Joni Mitchell?” Jon replies, and Robb is obviously trying not to burst out laughing.

“Snow, shut your hole. Joni Mitchell is better than that indie crap you like. And it’s not like my sister is happy about it.”

“It’s hard to be born in a family where everyone plays metal,” Robb supplies. Theon throws him a half fond and half irritated side-glance, but then he smiles a small, little smirk.

“Considering that you’re in a group with _me_ , you should be the least to complain.”

Jaime looks utterly baffled by this point.

“Wait. You two are in a group?”

“I figured that if I had to start doing something with my life football wouldn’t cut it,” Robb replies. “It’s not as if we’re professional or anything, but –”

“And what’s the name?”

“Uh,” Robb starts, “we’re still playing around and we’ve changed some…”

“And the current one might not be definitive,” Theon adds, “but –”

“It’s _Starkjoy_ ,” Jon cuts him. “Which I can’t help finding adorable, but hey, it’s folk music and they have _banjos_ , it sort of fits.”

“Snow, go fuck yourself,” Theon retorts.

“Shouldn’t you be getting the cupcakes?” Brienne interrupts, and everyone suddenly remembers that their arms are full of empty boxes.

When they get into the kitchen, the three of them let out a whistle at the same time. “Holy – Arya’s going to go crazy,” Jon says, eyeing the ocean of cupcakes and the cake covering most of the table.”

“You mind if I eat one?” Theon asks, eyeing the caramel batch.

“Only if you watch the rugrats with us,” Robb replies, and Theon rolls his eyes and reaches out for the cupcake.

“Whatever. You were going to con me into keeping you two from going insane, anyway.”

Jon rolls his eyes and goes to put the cake inside the box; Robb hands Brienne one of his boxes and fills it with the red and orange velvet cupcakes while she holds it for him, and Theon does the same while Jaime holds up his. When they’re done and the kitchen is free of food lying on various, random flat surfaces, Brienne volunteers to help them bring down the boxes. She grabs one of the cupcake boxes while Robb and Theon bring down the other four.

Theon’s car – pardon, _Joni_ – turns out to be a huge, black, old station-wagon that has seen better days and has the trunk covered in stickers that mostly encourage you to have free sex with whoever you want as much as you want. They put the cake in the trunk and the boxes in the back – other than a pair of guitar strings lying around and something under the seat that seemed definitely dark men’s underwear, she sees a couple of sheets filled with scribbled lyrics. She glances at the front. The radio still has a tape slot.

When she moves back out of the car, she sees Robb talking to Jaime.

“– well, sorry about your hand.”

“Why, thanks. I’m doing decently without, after all. And good luck with the – the Starkjoy thing. As long as you don’t sign record deals with my dad’s company.”

“Because he’d have _me_?” Robb snorts, but at least the two of them sound in good spirit.

“Gentlemen,” Jon interrupts, “we have two hours before Arya gets home and one and a half before the place starts crawling with crazy kids. It’s been a pleasure but –”

“Yeah, yeah, get inside. Though – hey, what did you say your name was?” Theon asks, turning towards Brienne.

“Brienne.”

“Right. Snow said you work in a bakery? With a lot of customers?”

“Yes. Why –”

He opens the passenger’s door and rustles until he finds someone on the dashboard. And then he shoves what looks like a demo in her hands. The cover is kind of bad – something white and gold that she can’t quite distinguish, but there’s definitely a _Starkjoy_ and an _Iron Winter_ (the title, she supposed) on it.

“That’s our demo,” Theon explains. “The cover kind of sucks, but Sansa insisted on doing it even if she can’t use Photoshop, and Robb didn’t have the guts to refuse his sister –”

“Hey, Sansa doesn’t – well, fine, right. Next time we’re finding someone else if she doesn’t get better at it,” Robb admits, sounding apologetic.

“Anyway, if your boss is fine with putting it on, you’d make us a great favor,” he says, giving her a frankly lascivious wink before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Er, apologies. He’s a handful, but he’s not so bad. When you get to know him,” Robb says. “And thanks for all that.”

“Let me know what your sister thinks then.”

“Sure thing.” He nods at her and climbs into the car. And then Jon comes in front of her and looks half-embarrassed.

“Listen, I’ll drop over tomorrow for the payment if that’s fine?”

“Sure. No hurry.”

“Listen, uh – I’m not sure that even with Theon sticking by we’re going to handle all of those kids. Do you – do you have Ygritte’s number, by chance?”

Brienne rolls her eyes, tells him to hand the phone over. She writes the number in, she knows it by heart, and hands the phone back. Jon’s flush has increased.

“I think she said that she was keeping herself free, this Sunday.”

“… oh. Thank you. And – oh. Uh, _congratulations_. You and him. You know. Bye!”

And then he dashes away and gets in the car. Theon puts it in gear and drives out of the street, and Brienne and Jaime are left in front of the building’s door.

“Well, that was interesting,” Jaime says, snatching the demo from Brienne’s hand. “Then again, if they write song titles like _Grey Wind_ and the only cover is a Fairport Convention one I can believe that his sister doesn’t like his genre.”

“Enlighten me?”

“You don’t know Asha Greyjoy? That group rocks! She’s the hottest metal act of the last twenty years! And their father was in this group, damn, how was that called, the _Ironborn_? Whatever, they did some great stuff and everyone is copying from them in that genre, but they only managed to be popular among the critics. They had this small following but he never became _famous_. Apparently he thinks that his daughter is his only musical heir. Which would make sense, since his son isn’t that much into metal, apparently. And his two brothers are frankly terrible.”

“… I guess I’ll ask Renly if we can put this on,” Brienne says, since it’s not as if she has any answer to that. She didn’t have any idea that anyone named Greyjoy existed before today, for that matter.

“And I think that I should go talk to your landlord.”

Jaime puts his arm around her, and she leans back into him. “I really think you should.”

\--

Jaime has apparently no problem whatsoever with being granted the use of the apartment – Brienne had thought it’d be harder, since it’s not as if Stannis Baratheon isn’t famous in the building, among the rest, for not liking Tywin Lannister and for hating Lannisport City with all his might. Either Jaime’s charm can do miracles or it’s that when Jaime had knocked on the door, Stannis had been in company of his best friend, Davos Seaworth, who is also incidentally the building’s porter. (And the one that collects the rents – he apparently has a much nicer way of asking for it, differently from the building’s owner.) And whenever Davos is around Stannis is a lot more amiable to talk to. Jaime spends the afternoon on his phone talking to Tyrion – Brienne thinks they’re arranging to bring his things here – and she feels a certain excitement as she goes back into the kitchen.

She had promised him the butterscotch cupcakes, after all. And since she doesn’t mind some background music, she puts on the Starkjoy demo in a small cd player she keeps in the kitchen.

It takes Jaime two hours to get through the entire ordeal; she keeps herself busy in the meantime and when he comes into the kitchen cursing under his breath and saying that he owes his brother a damned lot, she presents him with a new batch of freshly baked cupcakes.

“Well, you know how to make a guy feel better,” he says snatching one. He doesn’t eat it immediately, though – he keeps on staring at it with a certain satisfied glint in his eyes.

She lets him gloat, it’s not as if it’s going to hurt anyone.

“If you owe your brother, I think I have something that might help you.” She nods towards the oven and his eyes widen.

“You’re baking him a red velvet butterscotch cake?”

“He said he liked cakes better. And don’t worry, you still inspired it.”

“Mm. Well, I’ll tell him to drop by tomorrow. And wait, what’s this thing that you’re listening to, Starkjoy?”

“Yeah. They’re not bad,” she says. She hasn’t followed the lyrics much, but Robb Stark has a nice singing voice and the music is quite pleasing. It could work in the bakery – it’s all lovely tunes, but not too invasive either.

“Huh. Snow wasn’t kidding when he said they used freaking banjos, but it’s not bad at all. Who’d have thought?”

He puts his right arm around her again and takes a bit from the cupcake. She can’t help licking a small bit of butterscotch from the corner of his mouth.

“Want a taste?” he teases, moving the cupcake closer.

“Why not,” she whispers, and when she delicately bites down on the cupcake, a piece of red velvet base and some frosting melting on her tongue, she thinks that it tastes just right.

\--

The following day, she leaves for work at the same hour while he goes downstairs – he needs to be there when his things get delivered.

She’s smiling all the way to the shop, and through the first two batches of cupcakes and the first three pies she bakes that morning. When Renly comes into the shop he stares at her for a moment and asks her whether she won the lottery, while Loras tells her that she’s freaking him out with all that smiling. Brienne doesn’t offer details but tells Renly to give the Starkjoy demo a try and see if they could keep it playing for a bit.

Ygritte arrives a bit before noon and finds her behind the counter. And then she gives her a pat on the back so hard that Brienne almost drops the glass she had been cleaning.

“Congratulations!” she chirps, keeping her voice low enough.

“For – for what?”

“Where do you think I was this week-end?”

Oh. _With Jon Snow_.

“Did – did Jon tell you something?”

“Only that you finally got into someone’s very tight pants. And it was time. Also, it amuses me to no end that we did it at the same time.”

“Wait – you mean that you and Jon –”

“In the garden. In some kind of tent that was up for fake camping. Oh, it was glorious. And at least he knows where to put it.”

Brienne thinks she might die of embarrassment when Jon chooses exactly that moment to walk through the door. He looks at Ygritte standing next to her and he flushes, but he’s also smiling at her and Ygritte is doing the same.

Brienne moves towards the cash register.

“So, how did that go?”

“It went – it went great. Well. The living room will need renovations, but everyone knew that. Oh, Sansa says that the pink and lemon cupcakes were heavenly. There wasn’t anything left.”

“Well, that’s nice to know. If you ever need more of that…”

“Oh, I don’t think Arya is ever going to want to order her cake from anyone else. However, I think this should cover it?” He hands her a check, the sum they had agreed on written on it, and she nods before putting it in her jeans pocket.

And then she notices that Jon is totally looking at Ygritte, who has her back turned to them while she makes coffee.

“ _Congratulations_ to you too, by the way.”

Jon blushes harder and when Brienne goes back to the kitchen, she hears Ygritte telling him that he knows nothing.

Who’d have thought that it’d be a good pick-up line.

That afternoon, Tyrion Lannister shows up at four PM and asks for her; she comes out of the back with a box in her hands.

He glances at her neck and whistles.

“I see that you haven’t lost time, have you?”

“… no. And – well, Jaime says that he owes you for whatever you were talking about yesterday. But I think I owe you, too, so take this. I’m pretty sure it’s to your taste.”

“Huh. Let’s see.”

He opens the lid, looks down at the content and stares at it for the next minute or so.

“No way,” he says, sounding impressed. “You baked this in my brother’s fucking image?”

“I might have, but you’re more than welcome to have it.”

“Oh, I think that if it lasts for three days it’ll be a miracle.” He’s looking at the now closed lid with that same satisfied gaze that Jaime had yesterday.

Brienne has this idea that some vanity runs in the family, but she’s more than fine with indulging it.

“Well, I guess I know why Jaime told me to drop by. Can’t say I’m not glad I did it. I think I’ll let you know when I want the next one delivered.”

“I guess you earned free deliveries for a long while,” Brienne replies softly.

“I think I should bring one to Sunday dinner,” he says, winking at her, and then he grabs the box and jumps down the chair before leaving the shop.

Brienne tries to imagine the scene and doesn’t know whether it’s more amusing or terrifying.

\--

When she gets off work, she gets a text from Jaime telling her to stop at the second floor.

She goes straight there without going home first and when he lets her in, she can’t help feeling impressed. The room, which wasn’t too big to begin with, looks crammed. There’s a bed bigger than hers in the corner, covered in red sheets. Actually, he has covered all the walls in red drapes or sheets, but in the few uncovered spots she can see the previous wallpaper peeling, so it’s not as if one could have covered them better, short-time. There’s a bunch of stuff lying around – other than a piece of furniture near the bed that looks stuffed with clothes, there are books, stacks of paper, stacks of vinyl records near a record player that looks quite good and stacks of extra clothes lying around. It seems like some sort of organized chaos, and the kitchen is barely distinguishable. He has put other piles of things on the kitchen shelves and counter, and you can notice that there is a kitchen only because you can see the sink and the stove.

After the first moment of _too much red_ , when she looks back on it, it seems almost nice. It’s peculiar, at least. And the drapes thing has its charm.

“Well, any interiors decorator would be horrified, but for having put it together in seven hours it’s pretty good.”

“Good, because I was thinking that you might offer me some dinner and I might introduce you to my bed. You don’t know how much of a pain it was to bring it here.”

“Why, I’d love to meet your bed. Properly. I could bring dinner down? I see you brought a table, too.”

Which is currently covered in old notebooks, but Jaime’s eyes are glinting.

“Then you can go make dinner and I’ll see that we can use the table.”

When Brienne gets back to the second floor with two plates of hot chili, the table is mostly freed and there’s a bottle of wine on the top.

Not much later, she finds out that Jaime’s bed is indeed a lot more comfortable than hers, and when she tells him that she liked it at first sight but that she’d love to get to know it better, he laughs against her cheek and says that it sounds like a plan.

\--

The next morning, he says that he’ll walk to the shop with her.

And then she finds out that there’s a public transport strike. He can’t use the personal driver anymore, obviously, so she calls Renly and tells him that she’ll be late and that in the kitchen there are some leftovers from yesterday that should still be fresh.

They walk for the next hour or so – the shop is on the opposite side of the city and usually the bus takes half an hour to get there. If they hurried they might have made it in less than that, but she finds out that she isn’t in a hurry and Jaime isn’t either, and so they take it slow. She isn’t expecting it when he reaches out and laces his fingers with hers; she gives his hand a slight squeeze, remembering that first time when she held it in the ambulance. She expects him to let go but he doesn’t, and Brienne doesn’t either.

She doesn’t think she ever held hands with Ronnet Connington for more than five seconds and she can barely remember how it felt.

This is making her feel so elated that she can’t help smiling without a reason.

“You know,” she says after a while. “The day I tell my dad about this, he’s going to faint.”

“Faint?”

“Why, do you think he ever had to scare potential boyfriends away?”

Jaime snorts. “What do I know. I’m as clueless as you, here.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. The only girlfriend I had in high school said she was done after her face ended up on the celebrity gossip news and the people you meet in my father’s circle are all about who makes more money. Do you know how hard is it to find someone who cares about boxing championships in that field? It’s all real estate and stock exchange. Sure, gave me enough money that I can take it easy now, but I’ve never spent the night with someone I had sex with. Not after the girlfriend who didn’t care for being on gossip magazines.”

“That’s – that’s a pity.”

“I could say the same, you know.”

“I guess it wasn’t a bad thing that you were such a jerk to me that first day, was it?”

“Always thought that good manners were overrated,” he says. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, kisses her without pushing it, just lips against lips. She reaches out, closes her fingers around his wrist, running her thumb where it stops instead of morphing into the top of his hand.

“I’m an idiot,” he says when he moves away.

“Why?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad my brother knows better than me. So, we’re going?”

“Yeah. Renly will kill me if there’s nothing ready by mid-morning.”

He doesn’t move his hand from hers when they start walking again.

\--

Brienne isn’t expecting to see a familiar Mercedes stuck in traffic next to the shop when they finally arrive there; it’s probably because of the strike – every road was crowded.

She hopes that it’s Tyrion on it, she does, but she’s not so lucky. When the side window comes down, it’s Cersei who is behind the door.

For a moment she feels as if she should move away – not that it’s worth much by now since Cersei saw the both of them already, but Jaime’s grip goes from light to crushing and he doesn’t let her. For a handful of seconds there’s staring on both sides (Jaime is staring at his sister, Brienne at Jaime and Cersei at the both of them) and Brienne sees Cersei’s lips thinning, her eyes hardening.

Then the window comes back up and the car drives away.

Jaime shakes his head, looking mostly tired, and then he drags her into the shop.

Renly’s eyes go wide from behind the counter, Loras stops dead in his tracks as he crosses the room, Ygritte gives her a thumbs up and Jon, who’s in front of the counter getting the apple pie to go again gives her a nod before putting the pie in his backpack and staring at Ygritte’s back without being too subtle about it.

And then she recognizes the music playing,

“What the hell,” Jaime says, and Brienne is thankful that at least there’s no client inside. The strike, probably. “Is that fucking _Starkjoy_?”

“Well –” Renly starts.

“Their music is so charming!” Loras says as he walks back behind the counter.

Renly sighs and Brienne figures that if Loras liked Starkjoy, then it’s all they’re going to listen to in the next six months.

She hopes that they have another demo because five songs on repeat for six months will drive everyone crazy.

“Brienne,” Renly says, “today’s probably going to be darned slow. Just do one batch and then you can close the kitchen. I have a feeling no one’s going to work this morning.”

She nods at him while Jaime gives her hand a squeeze before letting go.

“Go bake the darned things. I’ll be here.”

“So you did get into her pants,” Ygritte cheerfully says from behind the counter. “What did I tell you?”

“Oh, shut up. Apparently your bad pick-up lines worked, too, though mine was worse.”

Jon flushes red and Brienne goes straight into the kitchen.

She prepares her only batch for today (peach, banana and butterscotch, and if Renly has anything to say she can just bring those ones home) with the Starkjoy demo playing in the background. When she has everything in the oven, she goes back to the kitchen door and takes a look at the room. Loras and Renly are nowhere to be seen (storage room, probably), Jon is groaning while he looks at his cell phone and Ygritte is still arguing with Jaime about his lack of balls (‘seriously, your brother had to give her the pep talk? You’re pathetic, Lannister’), and then Jaime’s eyes meet Brienne’s while he answers Ygritte (‘says the one who knows everything, huh? At least Snow over there doesn’t seem to complain’).

Brienne smiles back and thinks that she’ll call her dad one of these days, and not to talk about how the shop is going.

\--

Half an hour later, Loras is looking alternatively at Jaime and the butterscotch cupcakes (Brienne thinks he’s jealous), Renly is saying that he has seen it all. Ygritte coos over one of them saying that it’s just _adorable_ until Jon steals it from her and takes a bite. Starkjoy is still running in the background.

“This place is insane,” Jaime mutters while he takes a sip of coffee. He still glances at the batch of butterscotch cupcakes in the counter from time to time though.

“But I never said that it was a bad thing.” He winks at her and when she puts her hand over his on the table, she thinks that if this was what she had to wait for all her life, then it was worth it.

End.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Seré la Crema de tu Cupcake, Moza](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6775507) by [Verde_Manzanita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verde_Manzanita/pseuds/Verde_Manzanita)




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